


Found: Spider-Kid in Need of a Hug

by althor42



Category: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)
Genre: Angst, FBI please don't put me on a watchlist for the searches I ran researching this fic, Gen, Hospitalization, Hurt/Comfort, I lied, Medical Horror, Racism, Whump, check the notes for warnings, fun times with radiation, i put words in the mouths of tv personalities, no one has a fun time with radiation, the unsettling implications of all of the spider people having their own uncle ben moment
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-17
Updated: 2020-11-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:41:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 58,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25948267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/althor42/pseuds/althor42
Summary: The kid was incredible. Jefferson had admitted that to himself early on. Not just capable, but compassionate and earnest. Whatever Jefferson’s thoughts on vigilantism, it was easy to see that the kid was doing it for the right reasons. It was easy to see that he wanted to help as many people as he could.But he was a kid, and Jefferson had always known he’d die a kid if no one saved him.The day had finally come that Jefferson thought he'd failed; that Spider-Man had gone to his death, and there was nothing he could do. Things didn't get any easier when the mask came off.
Relationships: Ganke Lee & Miles Morales, Jefferson Davis & Miles Morales, rio morales & miles morales
Comments: 29
Kudos: 131





	1. Best Laid Plans

**Author's Note:**

> So, no archive warnings apply, but there's some potentially upsetting content in this fic. Check the end notes for spoilery warnings. 
> 
> «/» indicates someone speaking in Spanish.

Miles swung through the city, glad for the changing seasons helping him to keep just a little warmer in the cooling late afternoon air. His suit was incredibly agile, perfect for Spider-Man’s style, but it was mostly only his enhanced metabolism that had kept him from turning into a popsicle in the winter.

He was less glad for all of the chaos around him. The streets below were gridlocked, people were panicked, but Miles didn’t even know what was going on. His spider-sense had been bothering him all day, a small vibration along the back of his neck instead of the static screech warning of immediate danger. But by the time he had left Visions, news of whatever was going on still hadn’t broken. Just his luck that it broke in a big way as he was just starting to swing his way towards danger. A mile closer to Manhattan, and people started flooding out of buildings, racing to evacuate the city.

It didn’t impede Miles at all, swinging above the chaos. It didn’t impede him, except to tear at him, every time he saw someone struggling, in need of help. They needed him, down below on the streets. But his spider-sense was telling him he was needed downtown even more. So he didn’t stop for the fender benders or even the fights between desperate people who thought someone was keeping them from getting away. He just kept swinging.

For all that he wished he’d hung back just long enough to catch the news, he was also kicking himself for not leaving earlier. Every time he had to put off superhero work for school he felt ridiculous, and today was the worst of all. All the while his spider-sense had been tingling, he’d been spending the day in a series of anti-bullying and tolerance seminars and break-out groups, which had lasted long after typical school hours (one of the many joys of going to a boarding school).

Could this panic have been avoided if he had left sooner? He could have just ditched, made an excuse. Except, he hadn’t wanted to look like a punk trying to get out of the anti-bullying program. Eyes were already on him as an Afro-Latino scholarship student, and it was bad enough he was caught AWOL as much as he was.

He was zeroing in on Central Park Tower, and if that was where the trouble was, then he really hoped it would be obvious, or his spider-sense could be a little bit more specific. The building was still under construction, but huge enough that it could take all night to search if the trouble wasn’t obvious. Except, maybe he wouldn’t have to search at all, because there was a definite, if still small, police presence invading the construction area on the ground. Mile’s stuck himself up top of a good-sized building to cast his eyes about.

It was no wonder there were so few cops present. Only two SUVs, and a handful of motorcycles. Just like the route he’d taken, everything was gridlocked as far as Miles could see. Only the most local of cops would have been able to respond here. There was a helicopter approaching the tower, with another coming in from the distance, but they were surveillance copters, not people movers.

The trouble wasn’t obvious though, at least not from here. But Miles could pinpoint a familiar face down on the ground, who’d be a good bet on getting a rundown on the situation.

Miles swung down, alighting on a fence post around the construction site before making his entrance. He did three flips in the air but landed next to his dad as casual as could be.

“What’s the situation, Officer Davis?” he asked choosing a random voice and accent. It was a little game they played, for all that it had never once fooled his dad into thinking Spider-Man was an adult.

His dad didn’t startle, used to Miles popping up out of nowhere. He seemed to be in charge, a lieutenant in a situation that was probably begging for a captain, overseeing the eight other officers present in setting up positions and equipment.

“This isn’t a Spider-Man situation,” he said. “You should evacuate with everyone else. Hazmat and bomb squad are en route to handle this.”

“I wouldn’t say no to having Spider-Man on site,” said a younger officer, setting up some electronics on a plastic folding table, his dad’s new rookie partner. “We still don’t know if that Nazi psycho has any accomplices in the area.”

“Why hazmat? What’s going on?” asked Miles.

“You don’t know?” asked the other officer.

“What’s going on is we’ve got a neo-nazi terrorist that decided that New York is the paragon of mixing all the different races together in ivory tower whatevers, and now he’s dying of radiation poisoning, and we’ve confirmed he transported a device with eight barrels of explosives up to the top of this tower. So unless you’re an adult, and that suit’s a hazmat suit, and you know how to defuse a bomb, you need to get out of here.”

Miles’s insides did something funny, with that horrid understanding that that bomb was for him, and for his mom, and for his dad, and so many of his friends.

“Sir, I got ETAs,” said another officer coming up, one hand to their ear. From the look on their face, Miles could tell that whatever the news was, it was not good.

“What have we got?” asked his dad, his grim tone reflecting the same understanding.

“Bomb squad’s gridlocked. We’re not getting their command vehicle, with so many abandoned vehicles in their way, and it may be as much as half-an-hour until they can get air transport. Hazmat…they think they can get here in an hour.”

“An hour? They’re supposed to have a response time of-”

“They’re gridlocked too, sir. They weren’t able to clear a path. They’re en route on foot to a helipad for extraction, but it’s going to take time to transport the gear they’ll need.”

“Is SWAT en route?” asked Jefferson.

“Twelve minutes by air.”

“And we don’t know how much time we have,” said his dad, looking wan. Uncertain in a way Miles had never seen him. “Get me the commissioner. They’re going to need clearance to send SWAT in without hazmat. Volunteers. They’ll have respirators and full body protection at least. They can abseil a couple men down onto the highest floor.”

“I don’t think we can do that,” said his dad’s partner. There was dread in his voice, and dread on his face, as he stared at the screen in front of him.

“Copter one has achieved visual on a count-down clock,” he said. “Thirteen minutes, thirty-three seconds. They’ll never have time.”

Miles’s stomach dropped. At the entrance to the construction site, another squad car and a couple of ambulances were pulling in. Whatever good they could do at this point.

“Howie,” said his dad, his voice almost dead of inflection, “give me the helmet cam and the tool kit. Officers, we’ve got no time for soul searching. I’m going to need volunteers to go up there with me as back-up. I’ll be the only one to approach the device.”

Miles turned back to his dad in shock.“Are you crazy?!” he screamed before he was even aware of the words leaving his mouth. “You have a family! You can’t go up there. You’re in freaking…a freaking windbreaker, for crying out loud!”

“Get out of here, Spider-Man.”

“No, this _is_ a Spider-Man situation. I can get there in a minute flat. I have accelerated healing. I’m durable. I’m resistant to some radiations.” (According to the comic books). “I’m the only one going.”

“This isn’t a debate,” said his dad, using his dad voice. “You have no idea if you can survive that!”

“You’re right,” said Miles. He was so incredibly angry, and so much of that anger was at his dad. “It’s not a debate.”

He webbed the helmet cam and the tool kit from out of his dad’s hands, before he leapt back a good ten feet, just in case anyone tried anything. He webbed the helmet to his head, rather than take the time to bother with straps. “I’ll be in touch,” he said, webbing himself a radio from off the table, the throat mic trailing behind it as he caught it.

“Stop!” his dad cried after him. And maybe it was just his imagination that his dad sounded heartbroken.

!!!!!

They watched, powerless, as Spider-Man leapt away, launching himself effortlessly up to the perimeter fence before really leaping high and sending out one of his webs. He swung his way around the surrounding buildings, ever higher, though the incomplete tower was still far taller than anything around it, other than 220 Central Park South, which itself towered over most everything else. In the end, with his webs anchored at the top of two of the taller nearby buildings, he about slingshot himself up to one of the unfinished floors of the building, catching himself on an I-beam. Here, it got tricky for him, with nothing to swing on. They could all just barely make out as he tensed and then leapt straight up, using another web to secure himself to the building again. Three more ridiculously high leaps from there, and he disappeared into the building.

The kid was incredible. Jefferson had admitted that to himself early on. Not just capable, but compassionate and earnest. Whatever Jefferson’s thoughts on vigilantism, it was easy to see that the kid was doing it for the right reasons. It was easy to see that he wanted to help as many people as he could.

But he was a kid, and Jefferson had always known he’d die a kid if no one saved him.

“Lieutenant, report,” came a voice behind him.

It wasn’t his captain, but it was _a_ captain, and one he knew and respected. This wasn’t his beat, but when needs must.

“What’s the timer at?” Jefferson asked his partner Howard ‘Howie’ Cho.

“Eleven minutes forty,” was the reply.

“SWAT’s about eleven minutes out, Hazmat and Bomb Squad aren’t getting here anytime soon. Spider-Man’s approaching the bomb with a helmet cam, radio, and tool kit from our squad’s crisis kit,” Jefferson.

“You let the spider kid go?” asked Captain Montgomery.

“I didn’t _let_ him do anything,” said Jefferson, feeling the weight of his failure.

“Figures,” said the Captain. He looked at Howie’s nameplate “Cho, we’ll need you to stay on tech. Get Spider-Man patched into the bomb squad.”

“Um,” Howie interjected, very uncomfortable. “Bomb Squad’s server is sequestered from ours, sir. It would take a hot minute for an administrator to patch us in. And without cell service, I can’t exactly manage a workaround.”

Cell service was down to prevent the bomb from being detonated remotely.

“Dammit. See what you can do, without directions that kid is worthless to us up there,” said Captain Montgomery. “Jefferson, how many rifles are on scene?”

“Two,” he said. “Unless you brought one.”

The captain shook his head. “Just a shotgun in my vehicle.”

“Sir!” An officer that had come with the Captain, and had stepped away a moment ago with his hand to his earpiece, approached them again in a rush. “Dispatch has linked us to the New York National Guard.” He indicated his radio. “They’ve been activated. Their bomb squad can’t get here for another ten minutes, about, but they’re able to force a connection through the cell towers. They can receive our video and provide guidance.”

“Officer Cho,” said Captain Montgomery.

“On it,” said Howie.

“Jefferson, I’m pretty sure they’ll come with their own tactical team, but I want rifle teams of two up top One-Eleven West and Two-Twenty Park on the lookout for shooters. Then tell the paramedics this is above and beyond, but if they want to evacuate, they’re leaving their busses here.”

“On it, sir,” said Jefferson.

It was good to have something to do that wasn’t listening to Spider-Man kill himself over the radios. There was a part of him that wanted to grab one of those ARs himself, and take up the search for any neo-nazis who’d decided to stay and guard the bomb. But he was a beat cop, not an action hero. Soon enough, he was back at their ad-hoc command post.

There was a bomb on the screen. Just like the images they’d received from the construction site’s security system, they could see the mass of barrels and electrical equipment, only now they were strapped together and wired up, instead of being transported up two barrels at a time. Excepting that this time it wasn’t security footage, it was from the jerky body-worn camera strapped to Spider-Man’s head. Howie was still working to patch the feed over to the Army bomb squad, while Officer Biggs was relaying everything he could see on the screen verbally to bomb squad.

“I’m ready, anytime you are,” said Spider-Man over the line, not even bothering at this point to hide how young his voice was.

“We’re not ready,” said Howie. “Step back a bit more from it, but give us more angles on it.”

Step back, because even a small distance from the radiation source could drastically increase your odds of survival. It was radiation 101, but Spider-Man had never had that seminar.

“Should we be worried about some sort of back-up cell phone trigger?” asked Spider-Man, starting to move around the device.

“Cell phone towers have already-”

The camera feed suddenly went wild, Spider-Man seeming to suddenly leap away, just as a shot rang out from the distance. Jefferson moved.

He had his pistol, but this wasn’t a firefight he could take part in, so his pistol stayed at his side. The only way Spider-Man could diffuse this bomb was if he got instructions from bomb squad, and that meant protecting the AV equipment and Howie. So that’s where he put his body, between Howie and the most likely source of that shot (and maybe it had something to do with Howie being a junior officer, _his_ junior officer). With his level three body armor on (no not just a windbreaker, Spider-Man), he could almost feel comfortable standing there in the open. Almost, but he didn't know what caliber rounds were being fired, or what kind of ammunition.

“Copter Two has visual, shooter on the roof of One57!” said Howie.

“Cheng, Rogers, shooter is on the roof of One57,” Jefferson barked into his radio. “What is your position?”

“We just made the highest accessible floor,” was the reply from Rogers, from the also-under-construction One-Eleven West.

“We need cover fire now! You’re the only ones with line of sight.”

“Bomb squad’s ready,” said Officer Biggs.

“We’re not ready with an active shooter,” said Captain Montgomery.

And the placement of the bomb on that floor, so far from the elevator, made sense now. So close to the edge on the south-east side of the building, it was perfectly placed for someone from the roof of One57.Howie relayed the situation to the incoming bomb squad and SWAT teams, that they would be coming in with an active shooter.

“I can do it,” said Spider-Man. “I can dodge any incoming shots.”

“Negative,” said Officer Biggs, “any incoming shots could detonate the device.”

“Wait, no, I can turn invisible, see?”

“Uhhh…Spider-Man, I can’t see, because your camera feed went dark,” said Officer Biggs.

“What? Aw hell.”

The camera feed came back showing a different angle, but Spider-Man was clearly still up on the ceiling.

“Can he turn everything but the helmet invisible?” asked Howie.

“Not if you don’t want the sniper aiming at the helmet that isn’t the slightest bit bulletproof,” said Jefferson.

“We’re in position,” reported Officer Rogers.

“Open fire,” ordered Captain Montgomery over his radio.

Shots began ringing out. The sharp raps of Cheng’s AR cracked through the air, firing measured shots one at a time, followed suddenly by the clapping boom of a much more powerful rifle. Jefferson hoped that the top floors of One57 were empty. It certainly wasn’t normal business hours, but this was the city that never slept, and Cheng was firing an assault rifle at the glass building.

“Confirmation, sniper is disrupted,” said Howie.

Disruption was likely the best they could hope for. Cheng wasn’t a sniper.

“Spider-Man, what’s your condition?” asked Officer Biggs.

“My leg caught a little shrapnel, but I’m fine. It’s hardly bleeding.”

Jefferson felt like his soul was leaving his body.

The Captain’s face twisted with a grimace. “Begin operation,” was all he said, though.

“Spider-Man,” said Officer Biggs, “your first direction is that if we get down to forty-five seconds, you are to shove the device over the side of the building to minimize the spread of contaminant. Do you understand?”

… “I understand. Hey, if I pull the bomb further back into the building, the sniper wouldn’t have line of sight.”

“Um,” Officer Biggs said dubiously. “Hold on.”

He checked in with Bomb Squad.

“Negative, Spider-Man. Moving the bomb is dangerous, and is a last resort.”

“Copy, that,” said Spider-Man.

“Good, now to start, we want you to begin by unscrewing the back panel of the device up top.”

“On it,” said Spider-Man, his feed lurching again as he dropped back down towards the device.

He was fast. Of course he was. He was Spider-Man, every move precise, measured, nimble, even with shrapnel in his leg. Never mind that estimates of his age ran as low as eleven; he was good at this.

Jefferson hated the fact that Spider-Man was the perfect person out of all of them for the job.

Word came in that FEMA had been activated. They had a hazmat crew from one of their Disaster Medical Assistance Teams inbound in ten minutes. Jefferson started coordinating with them.

Then everything went wrong when that panel came off.

A mist billowed out from the device, followed by a choked off gasp from the boy.

“What was that?” asked Officer Biggs.

“Aerosol,” Spider-Man said, his voice strained around his coughing. On the screen, his hand darted quickly into the device and pulled out a tiny component, stopping the spray. “There’s an aerosol rigged to the panel.”

“Are you okay? What is your status?” asked Officer Biggs.

“I’m fine,” said Spider-Man. The video feed lined up with the inside of the device, Spider-Man waiting for further instructions.

Everyone knew he wasn’t fine. He’d almost certainly just inhaled a radioactive substance. Jefferson’s own throat felt like it was going to close up. The pain of that realization physical and immediate. But shots were still ringing out, and he kept his position.

“Um,” said Howie, and Jefferson wasn’t the only one feeling choked up. “I got the feed through to bomb squad.”

“Good job,” said Captain Montgomery, clapping him on the shoulder.

Jefferson relayed the situation to hazmat, then moved to Officer Bigg’s mic.

“Spider-Man, hazmat is recommending that you try a few big coughs to clear your lungs and spit regularly to your right-hand side. Make every effort not to swallow your saliva.”

“To my right-hand side?” asked Spider-Man.

“Just pick a side so you’re not getting it everywhere,” he said.

“Right."

The work began in earnest then, Spider-Man being walked through the delicate procedure. Down on the ground, a couple of officers had finally commandeered an E-Z Up from the construction site to provide some visual cover for their command station.

“Sniper is back in position!” Howie warned.

“Spider-Man-” Officer Biggs began, before the loud resounding clap of the sniper rifle went off again.

Again, Spiderman dodged out of the way.

“Scott free that time,” he said, tension in his voice as he hung upside down from the ceiling. The feed suddenly lurched again. “Crap!” the kid yelped as he fell to the ground.

"Have you been hit?” asked Officer Biggs, though they hadn't heard the sniper rifle go off.

Spider-Man seemed to duck behind a column. “I think, um, my fingers are too burned to stick okay."

That horrible fact was just sinking in when Howie gave the all-clear again.

“Jefferson, make sure things are ready for Hazmat when they get here, they’ll need to be able to begin decontamination immediately,” said Captain Montgomery.

“Sir,” Jefferson acknowledged.

He switched channels, and began talking to the FEMA team chief. Distantly, he was aware of a military helicopter moving into position near the One57, and more shots being exchanged. He was aware of soldiers rappelling down onto the One57 rooftop. Distantly, he was aware of confirmation that the sniper was down. Not so distantly, he was aware of the sound of the kid coughing with greater frequency and intensity over his channel.

Jefferson worked mostly with the paramedics who had stayed (and all of the paramedics had stayed). One of them went to move a water truck into position. There was a large ditch that sunk down about two and a half feet nearby where the water could pool instead of run off, and he had another put a tarp down in the bottom, and dig a deeper hole next to the tarp to further channel water into. They got a receptacle for contaminated materials and put down flares where the helicopters could land. They moved one of the ambulances into position; not for evac, but for the equipment inside. Spider-Man would be medevac’d as soon as he was ready for transport.

“Was that blood?”

Jefferson’s gaze swung to the screen. He couldn’t see any blood.

“I’m fine,” was the kid’s reply.He really didn’t sound it.

“Spider-Man, are you coughing blood?” asked Officer Biggs.

“Bomb squad, what’s my next direction?” asked the kid. He spat a bloody mess onto the ground.

Jefferson’s hand went to cover his mouth.

Bomb squad’s next direction was to avoid coughing blood into the device.

They all watched as the kid kept going. Pulling screws, snipping wires, further disassembling the device. He kept going as his hands started trembling, and his coughing came with ever increasing frequency. A little blood did get into the device. They saw a lot more of it land off to the side.

Jefferson just wanted to yell at him to get the hell out of there. To get down to where they could begin decontamination so they could get him to treatment. But life didn’t work like that. Spider-Man was all that they had.

“Your next direction is to cut the blue wire,” said Officer Biggs.

They watched as the wire cutters in the kid’s hand moved to the blue wire, but then suddenly still.

“I can’t cut the blue wire,” the kid said urgently.

“Please clarify?”

“It’s my spider-sense. It’s saying, ‘do not cut the blue wire.’”

“You have a _feeling_ about cutting the blue wire?”

“Spider-sense is very real!It’s why I was on my way here before the news dropped.”

There was some deliberation with bomb squad.

“Okay,” Officer Biggs got back to the kid. “Apparently it’s _either_ the blue wire or the top yellow wire.”

“Did they pick at random?!”

The exclamation was followed by some ragged coughing, but then the kid snipped the yellow wire. Nothing happened, so they moved forward.

“Sir, we’ve had communication from the FBI,” said Howie. “They believe that an associate of Turner’s was able to acquire forty-three pounds of cesium-137.”

“Good god,” said Captain Montgomery. “How’d Turner survive to get to the hospital if he was moving cesium in barrels like that?”

“He may have had a more secure container, and only added the component when he set the device,” said Officer Biggs.

“He’s dead now, actually,” said Howie. “As of about twenty minutes ago.”

They all turned their heads to look up at the Central Park Tower, where the kid was sitting right next to the stuff; where he had inhaled the stuff.This was why Jefferson still didn’t like vigilantes. Even when they were so incredibly good, they died and they took your hope with them.

SWAT arrived, and began securing the tower. As much as one SWAT team could secure a building that size.

They watched as the kid’s movements became less nimble, less sure; his actions delayed, and his coughing more frequent. But still, the device was declared defused with one minute and thirty-two seconds on the clock, just as the Army Bomb Squad was landing. FEMA’s hazmat crew was expected within ten minutes. Everything was running smoothly for the moment, except the kid’s reaction to the declaration of defusal was a protracted coughing fit, which went on and on, with ever louder gasps in between.

“Hey guys, I um, I think I don’t feel so good,” he said, his voice raspy when he’d caught his breath.

There was fear in his voice now. There had been emotion in it through the encounter, but this was the first time he’d allowed himself to sound scared, now the threat was gone.

“We just need you to get down here,” said Officer Biggs. “The construction elevator on the South side of the building is working. SWAT believes your path down here is clear. They have your floor and the ground floor secure. They are present to guard your exit, but they cannot render you direct assistance. We believe you are contaminated with particulate radioactive material. We have a decontamination area ready for you, but you need to get yourself down here.”

“Okay,” said the kid.

The helmet cam stayed on as the kid made his way through the floor he was on, swaying and lurching. Jefferson remembered that the kid had shrapnel in his leg, but even still his gait seemed to be deteriorating with every step.

“Kid, I think you’re going East,” said Howie.

“What?” asked the kid.

“You’re walking towards the Marriot. You should be walking towards the park.”

“Isn’t that…”

The kid turned right, instead of left.

“SWAT team, please give Spider-Man a shout towards your location,” Howie said.

“Copy that.”

They didn’t hear the shout over any of the radios. They just saw the camera feed do a one-eighty, making the kid wobble for a moment.

“I’m okay,” he said, going for reassuring, but sounding anything but through the pain and the subsequent coughing fit.

Jefferson gave just the faintest sigh of relief when the kid finally found the elevator. He didn’t feel any relief though as the kid let himself collapse once the elevator started moving down. The kid was panting painfully for breath, and then the camera went flying to the ground before they heard the sound of the kid retching.

And god, but the elevator was moving slowly. Everyone who wasn’t watching the feed, (now just a tilted view of the kid’s arm, propping him up from the floor), was watching its slow descent.

“Hurts,” the kid choked out.

“You’re almost down,” Officer Biggs lied. “We’ll get you taken care of.”

“I…” another coughing fit. “I’m supposed to go up. There’s…there’s a bomb. I…”

He was completely delirious. Probably a severe fever, if Jefferson remembered his radiological training correctly.

“The bomb’s diffused, it’s all taken care of.”

“No, I-.” His panting breathes became sharp and fast. “It hurts!” he gasped out. His head came into view on the monitor, the mask up past his mouth, showing a bloody jawline that had never seen a razor blade and was now marred with blisters and lesions.

Jefferson was trembling. Every instinct in him was telling him to run to the kid. But all he’d succeed in doing was contaminate himself.

“Spider-Man, it’s time you need to take your suit off,” said Officer Biggs. “It’s carrying radioactive particulates near to your skin.”

“No, I…I can’t.” The kid instead pulled his mask back down.

“You’re poisoning yourself,” said Officer Biggs. “Now that you’re away from the device, you need to remove your mask at the very least.”

“I- I don’t know what’s going on,” said the kid. “You can’t…It hurts. It hurts so bad!”

He was curled up now on the floor of the elevator.

Jefferson went over to the radio. “Spider-Man, it’s me. You need to take off your mask. It’s irradiated, and it’s killing you.”

“I want…I want my dad,” said the kid, his speech rough. “I want my mom and dad.” There was a long hyperventilating pause. “You can’t tell my parents I’m Spider-Man. You can’t. But, I want my dad. It hurts, I want my dad.”

His words were becoming more and more garbled.

“We’ll get your dad,” said Jefferson. “We’ll get your dad, and if you’re not wearing your suit, then he won’t know you’re Spider-Man. It won’t hurt as bad if you’re not wearing the suit.”

The kid rolled out of view of the camera, and a moment later his hand fell into view on the floor, clutching the mask tightly.

“It-,” the kid was panting for breath, “it still hurts!”

“I know, kid, I know, but you’re almost here. You did so good, and you’re almost here.”

“The bomb?”

“That’s right, you did it,” said Jefferson.

“I have to…there’s a bomb. I don’t think I can do it. You need to get out of here. I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I don’t want you to die too.”

“We’re okay, kid, the bomb’s taken care of,” said Jefferson.

“Ooohhhhhhhh, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts,” said the kid.

“You’re almost here,” said Jefferson, and this time it was actually true. “I know it hurts, but I need you to get up. I need you to get up, and walk out of the elevator in just a moment. Use those exterior doors, not the ones you came in.”

“I can’t!”

“You are Spider-Man, and Spider-Man _always_ gets back up! Come on, Spider-Man!” And it burned to call him ‘Spider-Man’ then, when the child has killed himself for them. When it was more obvious than ever that he should have never had the mantle pushed on him. Because it didn’t matter that he had gotten the job done, he was just a kid, and he was dying.

The kid was hyperventilating hard now, so hard that it was a miracle he hasn’t passed out yet. He retched again, even as his feet came into view, holding him up.

“That’s it, Spider-Man! You’re there. You need to open the doors, and walk out.”

“Hurts!”

“You got this. You can do this, Spider-Man!”

The kid’s feet moved from view of the camera, and Jefferson was relieved to hear the sound of the elevator doors opening. Even in the darkening evening and at a distance, though, Jefferson could tell that he’d opened the wrong doors, opening the elevator to the inside of the building instead.

“I- I can’t,” said the kid.

“You can put one foot in front of the other. Come on, Spider-Man. The exit’s the big glass doors to your left.”

The kid makes a keening noise of pain and frustration.

“Are you moving?”

The kid made a high guttural sound by way of response.

“We have eyes on Spider-Man,” came a report from SWAT. “He is moving towards the exit.”

“You’re almost there, Spider-Man,” Officer Biggs took over again. “Once you’re outside, you’re going to be flagged down to your right. Move to your right when you get out the doors. There’s a large ditch with a tarp at the bottom. You need to move to that tarp.”

His breaths sounded more like growls as a silhouette appeared at the front doors. Everyone who wasn’t doing something moved in his direction. Even if they couldn’t help, they felt the need to be near. The kid had his hands against the door, seemingly resting.

“Keep moving, Spider-Man,” ordered Officer Biggs.

The heavy door swung open wildly, evidence that, as much as he had deteriorated, he still had super strength.

The kid that stepped into view looked horribly familiar.

It still took him a moment to realize who he was looking at.

“Miles?”

The question was softly asked as his brain seemed to short-circuit for a moment. Captain Montgomery’s face was turning towards his in horror.

“NO! MILES!”

It was the Captain who grabbed the back of his jacket as he tried to race forward. Jefferson had just shrugged himself out of it when Howie tackled him around his legs.

Howie was tiny next to Jefferson, but it was enough to give a couple other officers a chance to take him down.

“I’m sorry, Dad,” the voice is faint, guttural.

“Jefferson, you can’t go to him. He might survive the shit he’s covered in, but you can’t. Don’t put Miles through that, do you hear me?”

“HE’S MY SON, LET GO OF ME!”

“Do you want your life on your son’s conscience for the rest of his? There’s nothing you can do!”

“He’s my baby! He’s my baby, let go of me!”

“Keep him down,” said the Captain.

“Spider-Man, get back up,” Officer Biggs was saying, because Miles was on all fours again, throwing up. Everything was red. “Once we get you clean, you can see your dad.”

“No, no, no,” said Jefferson.

But Miles got back up, staggering. He lurched towards the pit, and fell into it.

“Okay, Spider-Man,” said Officer Biggs. “You need to take off that suit, okay? Take off everything. They’re going to start spraying you with water, but you need to get out of those clothes.”

“Oh god, my baby boy,” cried Jefferson.

One of the paramedics wearing a full face respirator went down partway into the ditch with the hose, still keeping his distance from Miles.

There wasn’t any audio from Miles anymore, and Jefferson couldn’t see him. Didn’t know if he was alive.

“I’m okay, I’m okay,” he said. “Just let me up. Let me see my boy.”

“Jefferson, do you understand that you can’t go close to him without hazmat protection?” asked Captain Montgomery. “Can you control yourself right now? I need you to keep yourself level.”

“I understand,” said Jefferson. “I just want to be able to see my boy.”

“Alright, let him up,” said the Captain, and the other officers got up off of him. The captain helped Jefferson to his feet.

There was a fifteen-foot perimeter around the ditch that they stopped at, and there was Miles. He was mostly naked, and trembling, curled up on the ground as he was sprayed down with water in the cold evening air, his socks still on, and his boxer shorts hung off one ankle. There was a steady stream of red coming from his mouth and from a hole in his thigh, and there were sores all over his face and hands, and more seeming to form about his body.

“I can’t get him to get back up, or even to just roll over,” the medic with the hose called out.

Digging down for a strength he didn’t think he could have, Jefferson spoke up. “Miles, I’m here. Dad’s here, and I need you to stand up for me, okay?”

The growl that came out of Miles’s mouth might have sounded like ‘Dad.’ But that might have been wishful thinking.

“Miles, you are a Morales, and you are Spider-Man, and neither of those things allow you to lay down on the ground right now. Get up! Get up right now!”

And somehow, Miles managed to do it. Not all the way, but he got one foot on the ground, and planted a knee right next to it, even as he made a sound that has no business coming from his boy.

“I’m here, Miles! I’m here with you! You’re doing so well! I’m so proud of you.”

Miles finally made eye contact with him, and his eyes weren’t bloodshot, they were just completely red all the way through. His mouth a painful bloody rictus.

“I love you so much, Miles. Don’t you give up! Don’t you give up for one second!”

The medic with the hose moved to another angle as the blessed sound of another helicopter landing came in from behind them.

FEMA’s Hazmat team rushed in. They had scrub brushes on poles, and soapy water in pressurized tanks on their backs, and they took over decontaminating Miles. It was awful to watch, like something from out of a schlocky sci-fi thriller. But it was his son, and it was real.

Miles collapsed again, and this time he didn’t get back up, no matter how much Jefferson begged him. Hazmat still kept their distances as much as they could, only approaching him briefly to turn him over. Then they checked him over with a Geiger counter, before someone approached him with big swabs to clean out his nose and mouth.

“Sir,” said a new voice. There was a hazmat suited responder next to him. “I have a suit for you, if you’d like to accompany him to the hospital. I can help you put it on.”

“Yes,” the word choked quickly out of him.

So they kitted him out. It wasn’t a full pressurized suit, not now that they were decontaminating Miles. Just enough to protect him from any stray particles Miles may breathe out.

They finally carried Miles out of the pit and placed him on another tarp. Jefferson moved to go towards him, but the officer who kitted him out held him back.

“Once he’s dried and passed off to the next team, you can approach. Otherwise, you’ll have to re-suit, and there’s no time for that.”

There were medics tending to Miles even as he was dried off, wrapping his leg wound and putting an oxygen mask on him. And there was blood on the white towels, blood from his leg, and weeping sores on Mile’s hands and arms, his face and neck and chest. There was blood that misted out with every wet and gasping breath.

The Geiger counter was used again, lighting up around Miles’s face, and again, they pulled out swabs to clean out his nose and mouth.

It had been three months ago that Jefferson had held his brother’s dead body in his arms. He couldn’t convince himself that he wouldn’t be holding Miles’s by the end of the day. His boy was completely unresponsive by that point, his distressed breathing the only indication that he was still alive.

It was only once Miles was placed on a gurney and wrapped in a blanket that he was allowed to rush forward, chasing after the already moving gurney towards the medevac helicopter. Its blades were already spinning, had never stopped spinning.

He was pushed towards a seat and had a headset shoved over his head.

“Buckle up!” was the terse order that came through the headset.

Jefferson wanted to be on the floor, sitting next to Miles’s gurney, holding his son. But he had sense enough by this point not to argue. The only thing that mattered was getting in the air.

He kept his eyes on Miles through the flight as though he’d disappear otherwise. They had to intubate him only two minutes into the ride. Miles remained completely unconscious through the procedure, and Jefferson had to watch as his blood pressure dropped, as his heart rate rose, throughout the ride.

Then he started seizing, and Jefferson strained against his restraints as though he could do something about it. The muscle spasms were small; Miles wasn’t flailing. But everyone, even Jefferson, knew to stay back after Miles ripped open the blanket wrapped around him and dented the rail on his gurney. Then he started flickering in and out of view. Not all of him at once, but parts and pieces of him. A crackling sound, piercing the noise of the rotors and the muffling of their headsets, was the only warning before arcs of electricity began running over his body, making the convulsions all the worse. Jefferson watched on in horror. This was his son, with bloody red eyes rolled back in his head, his face a rictus of weeping sores, moving so unnaturally. It was his son who looked like he should have died already.

“Twenty-five seconds,” someone announced when it was over. It had felt like hours.

Hospital staff were waiting on the roof for them, fully kitted out in protective gear. And Jefferson should have realized what was about to happen. If he’d had any thought in his head that wasn’t Miles’s ever-deteriorating form, he would have thought to give warning. But he hadn’t.

Rio was the head ER nurse at Bellevue Hospital. Of course she was on the case, and of course she was on the roof.

“MILES! DIOS NO!”

And this time it was Jefferson holding her back.

“Shit, Cathy, take over for Rio!”

“My baby! It’s impossible, no!”

“He’s strong, Rio,” Jefferson said. “He’s strong, and you work with the best of the best.”

She looked up at him in shock, not having realized who had grabbed her.

“How? How did this happen?!”

Jefferson held onto his wife as Miles was rushed into the elevator, not knowing what to say. He didn’t understand it himself.

“Sir,” said one of the Hazmat team. “Decontamination protocol says I need to get you changed out of protective gear. You too, ma’am.”

“Mi hijo! I need to be with Miles.”

“We’re on the other side, right now, Rio. We’re not a nurse and a cop. We’re just parents.”

He’d just barely had enough time to process that, himself.

“Dios mío, they said he aspirated cesium! That hijo de puta already died of it!”

“That son of a bitch wasn’t Spider-Man,” said Jefferson. “He’s going to be okay. He’s a Morales.”

“He was shot!”

“Shrapnel,” said Jefferson. “I saw it; it’s a small wound. And we shot the nazi bastard that did it. We shot him to hell.”

And he’d never said it like that before. Never celebrated an officer-involved shooting. It felt ugly, but there’s so much hate in him right now that he doesn’t care.

“How did this happen?” asked Rio.

“I don’t know,” said Jefferson. “I just don’t know.”

!!!!!

They went through the decontamination protocol. It was nothing too intense, just a particular way of removing and quarantining their protective gear, before they were allowed down to the waiting room.

They both had training around the subject of radiological emergencies, but mostly pertaining to how to deal with it in a practical sense as a nurse and a cop. This was the first such emergency either one of them has dealt with. They didn’t really know what the prognosis could be, what kind of treatment Miles would need. Because of that, Rio began researching on her phone.

It was a kind of torture for the both of them.

Most of the info she found was about Acute Radiation Syndrome, (“It says the LD 50/30 is four to five sieverts.” “I don’t know what that means, Rio.” “It’s the dose where half of patients die within thirty days. Eight sieverts has a fatality rate of 100%.” “Does it say how we’re supposed to know how much he was exposed to?”) There didn’t seem to be as much information about internal contamination, but they knew that Turner had inhaled some of the substance, and now he was dead.

All that Jefferson could say in turn was, “He heals fast. He’ll pull through.”

But the speed with which Miles had deteriorated was a very bad sign. Rio figured it made it all the more likely that his bone marrow, or his GI track, or his central nervous system would fail him. Any one of which could slowly kill him within a couple of weeks.

But Spider-Man healed fast.

(Peter Parker hadn’t healed fast enough to avoid _his_ death).

Jefferson wanted to tell his wife to put away the phone, to stop taking in that poisonous information until they knew more about what they were dealing with, but he didn’t, because a part of him demanded he know as much as possible. It was better when she was talking about different treatments. Because people did recover from ARS.

Captain Dubois, his own captain, pulled him out into the hall some amount of time later.

“Jefferson, I need to know right now if you knew that was your son under the mask.”

His voice was a hoarse roar. “If I’d known that was my son, I would have chained him to the radiator three months ago! If I’d known that was my son, there isn’t a power in this world that could have kept me from chasing him down and dragging him away from that bomb!”

“I believe you,” his Captain was quick to say. “I didn’t need Montgomery to tell me you were shocked. God, I’ve known you since you were a cadet, but I still had to ask.”

“Patrick,” said Rio, stepping into the hallway herself. “Please tell us if you know. What was the dose he was exposed to?”

The captain pressed his lips together. “It’s only a rough estimate. There’s a number of factors that can swing it in either direction.”

“Whatever it is,” said Jefferson, “please just tell us.”

“Seven hundred and fifty rem,” said his Captain.

Out came Rio’s phone again to do a unit conversion. The conversion was pretty straight-forward. Seven hundred and fifty rem was the same as seven and a half sieverts.

“No!” cried Rio.

“He’s strong,” Jefferson told her, even though he felt dizzy with grief. Eight sieverts was always fatal, but it wasn’t eight. He didn’t know how much of a difference half of a sievert could make, but he knew the odds were terrible either way.

“We’re all praying for him,” said his Captain. “They’re saying there’s a chance for recovery even for a person with normal physiology. Whatever he’s got enhancing him, it can only be a good thing.”

Whatever was enhancing him had put him in that tower, defusing that bomb, while Jefferson did nothing.

“You've got me behind you,” said his Captain. “Montgomery, too. Initial estimates are…a three-square mile zone, near three million people, could have been irradiated if not for Miles. The whole city has your kid in their thoughts. Keep faith, we’ll pull through this.”

Time moved again, and Jefferson got a call on his cellphone.

“Ganke,” he greeted in surprise. It was only seven o’clock. Too early for Ganke to be so worried about Miles disappearing that he’d call.

“I’m downstairs in the lobby. They won’t let me up.”

“They won’t let you…” for a moment, he thought that someone wasn’t letting Ganke up to their dorm, but then understanding catches up to him. “Where are you?”

“The hospital. Bellevue,” said Ganke.

“I’ll be right down,” he said.

There was a buzzing in his head as he took the elevator down.

Ganke was there, alright, bundled up like it was still the middle of winter, and looking nervous.

“Come with me,” he told the kid.

No one questioned where they were going. Not even Ganke, when Jefferson led him not to the waiting room, but to a small courtesy office that officers used when they had business at the hospital.

“Miles’s name hasn’t hit the news, yet here you are. How long have you known that my son is Spider-Man?” he asked once they were alone.

Ganke flinched.

“How long?!”

“Since after the supercollider.”

“Three months?! And what were you kids thinking?”

He knew that it wasn’t fair. That the person he wanted to be screaming at was in an OR fighting for his life.

“We were thinking we were doing the best we could!” said Ganke, as though it was perfectly reasonable for Miles to go galavanting about with superpowers to fight crime.

“The best you could do would have been nothing!” said Jefferson. “Nothing at all! He should never have been out there!”

“You think we don’t know that?!” asked Ganke. “You think we don’t know it’s insane? That the shine didn’t wear off? That we didn’t have our reality checks?”

“Then why?”

“You say it like he had a choice,” said Ganke.

“Of _course_ he had a choice,” said Jefferson.

“Yeah? Well do you know how many spider people he met around that whole multi-dimensional event?”

“What does that-”

“Five,” said Ganke, “plus our own OG Peter Parker. And it’s not how similar they are, but how different they are that really strikes you, you know? Peter Parker from the nineteen forties. Peter Parker from the early two-thousands. Peter Parker’s friend Gwen. Penny Parker from the distant future. Some freaking anthropomorphic pig named Peter Porker. They all got bit by a spider that gave them superpowers.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“They’re all similar but different, Mr. Davis, different, but they all got bit. Different, and they all lost someone close to them not long after they got their powers.”

“What?”

“I guess Peter always loses his uncle. So did Miles. Penny lost her dad. Gwen lost Peter.Then they all became superheroes”

“Ganke, what the hell are you saying?”

“I’m saying Miles got spider powers the day before Peter Parker died, and then a bunch of different spider people slammed into our world to give him a mission and a crash course on spider powers. I’m saying the game was always rigged to make him a superhero. You think he ever had a choice?”

“That’s not…”

“The deck’s stacked, Mr. Davis, and it’s already been dealt.”

“I can’t accept that,” said Jefferson.

“I don’t think it matters if you do,” said Ganke. “Is Miles okay?”

“No,” said Jefferson. “No, Miles is not okay. He thought it was a good idea to disarm a dirty bomb without a hazmat suit.” So had Jefferson, but that was his prerogative. “He has severe radiation poisoning.”

“Well…Miles has super healing, he’ll be okay,” said Ganke.

“Miles was choking on his own blood and had a seizure,” Jefferson doesn’t say, because he has a modicum of restraint.

“I’ll let you know how he’s doing when we get word,” Jefferson said instead. “I don’t know how this is all going to play out. You shouldn’t be here. Go back to Visions.”

“I should be here when he wakes up,” said Ganke.

“He’s not waking up anytime tonight, Ganke,” said Jefferson. “I’ll let you know when it’s okay to visit.”

Ganke nodded miserably.

The thought wouldn’t leave his head as Jefferson walked back up to the waiting room.

_Peter always loses his uncle. So did Miles._

!!!!!

Last Week Tonight aired a webisode that same evening, with John Oliver broadcasting from the set of a New Jersey local morning news show, because of course, he’d been able to evacuate. So had Trevor Noah and Roy Wood Jr. from the Daily Show, and Oliver hosted them to talk about terrorism, racism, the police, and Spider-Man.

“We all knew he was stupid young,” said Wood, “But was he Peter Parker young, or younger?Parker was fifteen when he first started swinging around Queens.”

“The general consensus was always younger,” said Noah.

“Right, the voices, the stunts. That box full of puppies he almost fainted over,” said Oliver.

Jefferson had seen that video. Someone set up on the sidewalk with a box of puppies ready for new homes, and Spider-Man, Miles, had melted trying to pet all of them.

“He’s a baby,” said Wood. “A baby that saved our city twice now. Are we supposed to be okay with that?”

“I mean, I’m grateful,” said Oliver.

“I’m hella grateful,” said Noah. “The experts are saying that, while the initial death toll would have been low, there could have been thousands of New Yorkers with _severe_ medical complications, with millions more impacted. Even if they all recovered, it would potentially leave them with life long disability, a much shorter lifespan. And that New York may not have been able to recover as a city from the decontamination process.”

“Yes, but what does it mean to be grateful to a thirteen-year-old child in critical condition for responding to a situation he shouldn’t have ever been near in the first place?” asked Wood. “A very young _black_ child, who was every inch the target this terrorist and his accomplices had in mind.What do we as a city, as a society, do with that gratitude?”

Miles’s names still hadn’t broken yet, though Jefferson didn’t doubt that it was only a matter of time. But black and stupid young sure had spread fast.

Laura Ingram had suddenly had a lot to say about the new Spider-Man, too, Spider-Man and his family, with a lot of aspersions to cast that she’d never said about Peter Parker. Apparently he and Rio might be drug addicts or in jail, since Miles was out on the streets at all hours.

Tucker Carlson spent quite a while asking a lot of heated questions. “It behooves us to know as much as possible about this street kid that’s out pretending to be a superhero.”‘Street,’ as though he knew anything about Miles based on his skin color and haircut. ’Pretending,’ as though Miles couldn’t be a real superhero.

Jefferson was just waiting for people to figure out that Miles was Hispanic as well, and maybe this was just another kind of torture, combing the internet for information about his own son.

They were shown to Miles’s room around midnight, and stood outside of it, looking in through the window. Jefferson still didn’t understand what all had been done in all that time, but Miles was laid out on a hospital bed, most of the top half of his body covered in bandages. There was a special ventilator they were using to prevent radioactive particulates from escaping after they were breathed out. Because Miles’s lungs were still radioactive.

“He has been treated with one round of bronchoalveolar lavage, which radiological assessment shows has been highly effective in reducing the amount of cesium particulate in his lungs. Two rounds of gastric lavage have been effective in reducing the amount of cesium particulate in his stomach. We’ll want to repeat the bronchoalveolar treatment tomorrow, when he’s stabilized further. We’ve treated him with a granulocyte colony-stimulating factor, to support white blood cell production. Prussian blue dye chelation is being administered to bind to the cesium particulate and help remove them from his body. That’s going to drastically reduce the biological half-life of the cesium already absorbed in his body.”

“But it’s still in him?” asked Jefferson.

“We’ve gotten a lot out, but there’s a sizable amount of contaminant that has already been absorbed by his system. The bulk of treatments now are managing symptoms of the ARS, and helping his body to flush the cesium out as quickly as possible.”

“What’s his prognosis?” asked Jefferson.

“For a normal teen, we’d have a very low probability of survival from this kind of exposure, but we’re already seeing evidence of his enhanced healing. The wound on his leg was already closing up by the time he arrived here, and the skin lesions seem to be fading already. We’re hopeful that that indicates a much higher chance of recovery, though I also hope you can appreciate that we simply don’t have the data to be able to give you a firm response. We don’t know how his healing factor works, or if he will be as vulnerable to secondary infections and long term cancer risk. Right now, we’re going to have to wait to see what condition he’s in by morning, before I can give you any kind of expectation of what his recovery will look like.”

“If he pulls through the initial symptomology, will we expect the typical recurrence of ARS symptoms down the line?” asked Rio.

“Recurrence?” asked Jefferson.

“With ARS, there’s usually an initial amelioration of the acute symptoms, followed by a recurrence days or weeks later. A specialist on ARS is flying in from the CDC, and an expert on meta-human physiology is en route as well. Hopefully, they’ll be able to give us some manner of theory of what this will look like.”

“Can we sit with him?” asked Jefferson.

“He is still emitting low levels of gamma radiation from the internal contamination,” said the doctor. “Brief contact is fine, but if you want to sit with him, we’ll need you to be wearing leaded aprons and radiation glasses.”

“Whatever we need to do,” said Rio.

“You’ll need to wear your dosimeters at all times,” said the doctor, “and minimize close contact.”

“Of course,” said Jefferson.

"Take care not to sleep at his bedside. If you insist on staying in the room, you can make use of the couch, but please don't move it closer to the bed. We'll be checking your dosimeters regularly. If the indicator turns yellow, we'll have to exclude you from the room for at least twenty-four hours.”

“Whatever it takes,” said Jefferson. “We want to be here for Miles.”

There were lead sheets hanging around the rails of Miles’s bed, but they were still able to reach over and touch their son. Jefferson put his hand on Miles’s chest, feeling the rise and fall, and the thump-thump-thump. It helped, feeling those signs of life.

“He’ll be okay,” Jefferson told Rio. “I know he will.”

!!!!!

He was surprised to get a visit from Captain Montgomery at around two AM.

“Sir,” he said, getting up from his chair. The Captain had flagged him down from the window, not quite approaching the doorway.

Rio was asleep on the couch. They’d both agreed to follow the doctor’s recommendations pretty closely.

“You know he’ll blame himself if either one of us gets cancer ever,” Rio had said.

So they stayed in the room, but they kept close contact to a minimum, as much as it pained them.

“Let’s talk,” said the Captain when Jefferson joined him in the hall.

So Jefferson wound up back in the courtesy office he’d talked to Ganke in.

“There’s been a lot going on tonight,” said the Captain by way of an opening.

“I’m sure,” said Jefferson.

“Looks like the sniper’s going to pull through,” said the Captain. “FBI’s chomping at the bit to get their hands on him. Of course, I’m wondering how the Feds knew about the Cesium so fast. Makes me think they already knew about it in the first place.”

“Wouldn’t surprise me,” said Jefferson.

“What’s the bet they thought they could wait till the eleventh hour and get on the news stopping it themselves?”

“Not taking that bet, sir,” he said. “What did you really come here to talk to me about?”

Because whether or not the captain was finished at the scene, there was no way he was done for the night. The Captain would probably be working through till morning at least.

“Been talking to a lot of people. Consulted with Captain Dubois. Good man. We think we’ve got things pretty well under wraps.”

“Sir?”

“It wasn’t a small operation tonight, but relatively speaking, we got lucky. There’sthirteen officers, four paramedics, three doctors, two nurses, a chopper pilot, myself, and Dubois who know your son is Spider-Man. Everyone is in agreement that, for many reasons, not least is the safety of your son and your family, that the official account tonight is that Spider-Man was unmasked, but not positively identified.”

“Sir, I…I can’t ask you to do that,” said Jefferson.

“You haven’t,” said Captain Montgomery. “You think it’s in the best interest of the PDNY for Spider-Man to be the thirteen-year-old son of a Lieutenant? You think we want the controversy of just that revelation? Never mind figuring out what the hell to do with him legally, that doesn’t piss off half the nation either way.”

“But…”

“And let’s get back to the safety of you and yours, Jefferson. I’d like you to take a look at this.”

He pulled a piece of paper from a folio he had come in with. Jefferson took a look at it.

It was a list. A long list, of names and organizations. The first name on the page was ‘Wilson Fisk, AKA King Pin,’ and the second name was ‘Mac Gargan, AKA The Scorpion.’

It was a list of his son’s enemies.

“When did he piss off the triad?” he asked.

“He hasn’t directly. But they have a standing bounty on any third party that operates on their territory, and he’s stopped a couple of muggings thereabouts. Here’s something else to look at.”

There was another list, longer, on more than a few pages.

“Enemies that Peter Parker had, that you need to consider your son may have inherited. And these lists, Jefferson, they don’t even cover the numerous white supremacy groups in our nation that might decide that the black Spider-Man who just foiled an Arian terror plot should be public enemy number one.

“Now, you might be thinking that Miles could turn state’s evidence on Fisk, and any number of other cases, and get himself into witness protection, but how realistic is that, really? He’d have the most recognizable face in all of America, and you’d have to bank on him keeping his powers under wraps. You’d have to bank on him not getting himself kicked out of the program by going out and fighting crime.

“Can you keep your family safe in a world where your son is the face of Spider-Man?”

“Sir, I don’t know if my boy’s going to survive the week,” said Jefferson.

“I know, Jefferson,” said Captain Montgomery. “And we’re praying for him. We’d be burying officers if it weren’t for him. Frankly, I don’t think the device could have been defused at all without him, not with the clock where it was at. Would have taken you near four minutes to get up there, and none of our officers can dodge bullets. We owe him a debt. And because we do, we’re going to behave as though we know he’s going to be okay, and that he will need this protection we’re securing him.”

“How would it work?” he asked, his gut twisting. It was a cover-up, and it went against everything he believed in. Everything he had tried to live by. But, by god, the man hadn’t said anything that wasn’t true.

“For one thing, on paper, you and your wife are not Spider-Man’s parents here at the hospital. You’re an officer assigned to him, she’s his nurse. We’ve already restricted access to his hallway, so you shouldn’t have to worry about appearing too familiar with him. The only people attending to him will know the truth already.”

“And the official story?”

“It’s very simple. Spider-Man was unmasked as part of the decontamination process, but the damage to his face was already so extensive that it made positive identification impossible. The radiation burns to his hands have made fingerprinting impossible. And we already know from Parker that whatever happened to their DNA garbles up the testing. If anyone outside of the circle does turn up saying they heard that there was an officer claiming that Spider-Man was his son, and there's been no whispers of that so far, then it will be simple to say that it was a false identification. The boys looked similar enough, and under stress you mistook the bloodied form for your son’s. But we quickly confirmed that it was not him.”

“And _when_ he gets better? When the wounds heal?”

“He’s Spider-Man. He’ll just have to flee the hospital before a proper identification can be made. You’ll want to call his school tomorrow. Tell them he showed up at home tonight looking awful. He’s gotten mono. A doctor here will provide a note saying Miles is ill and cannot attend school for the time being, which will be completely factual.”

“You think we can pull this off?” asked Jefferson.

Captain Montgomery nodded. “We already are. We haven’t talked to anyone who was more than a little reluctant. Everyone understands the need for this. I hope you’ll understand though, but of course, on paper, you'll have specifically requested to handle the protection detail yourself. Citing your already existing rapport with the boy. Your wife assigned at your suggestion for simplicity sake.”

So that if Miles was ever unmasked, it would look like the only people concealing his identity were his parents.

“Okay,” he said, knowing it wasn’t the right choice, but not knowing what else he could do.

“Good,” said Captain Montgomery. “We’ll keep you posted on any developments. Now, let’s talk hospital security.”

!!!!!

His world consisted of repetitive sounds and waves of pain for a while. There was no context to it, no understanding. Just repetitive beeps and whooshes. The opening and closing of valves. The pain was everywhere. It would deaden for a short while, and the noises would come to the forefront, but more often than that the pain was sinking deep, deep, down into his bones, until every whoosh brought with it its own wave of pain. Then there would be a ticking sound, and the pain would recede again.

…

Someone was touching his head.

…

Someone was whispering, but he didn’t know what they were saying.

…

Everything hurt so much.

…

The pain went away. It really _went_ _away_ , and all that was left was the sounds, until even those were gone too.

…

The pain came back, and the sounds came back, and he was moving around. His eyes were open, but he couldn’t see, and there was something over his face.

There was something in his mouth, in his throat!

He reached up to grasp at it, ignoring the new waves of pain it brought him, and he pulled.

“Miles, stop!”

Miles couldn’t stop, not until he could breathe again.

He gagged, and then started coughing the moment his throat was clear.

“I need you both to stand back,” someone said. “We need to clear the contaminant.”

“I can’t see!” Miles choked out.

“Miles, my name is Nurse Cathy, and I’m taking care of you right now.”

“What’s going on?”

It hurt to talk. It hurt so much to talk.

“You’re in the hospital. Your face is bandaged, that’s why you can’t see. You’ve just pulled out your breathing tube.”

“Where’s my parents?”

“We’re right here, mijo,” said his mom.

“We’re with you,” said his dad, “we just need to stand back while the nurses do their job.”

“Wha-”

He started coughing, and that hurt the worst of all.

“You’ve been exposed to radioactive contaminants,” said the nurse. “It was in your lungs, so we need to decontaminate this area, okay? We’re going to take away this breathing tube. We’re going to take away the blanket, and we’re going to clean you up a little. We’re going to make sure we took care of any contaminant by checking with a geiger counter. And we’ll be very gentle with you, okay?”

“Don’t understand.”

“Miles, it’s dad, there was an attack, okay? You breathed in a radioactive substance, and you’re at the hospital. You’ve been recovering great.”

“Don’ remember.”

People were touching him. The thing that was in his throat, the breathing tube, was pulled out of his hand. A smaller tube was wrapped around his face, blowing into his nose. A rush of cool air came over him as his blanket was removed. Someone started wiping away at his mouth, while someone else started unwrapping something from his hand.

“Wanna see,” he said.

He didn’t like this. He didn’t like this. Why would someone spray him? Was this because of Spider-Man?

“We’ll ask the doctor about removing some of the bandages in a minute, hon,” said Nurse Cathy. “But there’s a lot of tissue damage, and it’s important to keep them on right now.”

“Mom,” he tried.

“I’m right here, mijo. Cathy’s a friend of mine, she’s taking really good care of you.”

Something slotted into place in his head. “I’m radioactive?”

“A little bit,” said Cathy. “That’s why we’re all being very careful, and you’re receiving excellent care. You’ve got some of the best doctors in the world taking care of you.”

“Who else?” he asked.

“It’s your mom, me, nurse Cathy, and Nurse Felix in here right now,” said his dad.

Miles shook his head. “Who else sprayed.”

“No one, sweetheart,” said his dad, and oh god, but his dad didn’t pull out ‘sweetheart’ all that often. “Everyone else is fine. We’re all just worried about you. I guess you don’t remember, but you saved a lot of people. You saved me.”

“You know…”

“Don’t worry about Spider-Man,” said his mom. “Just focus on feeling better, alright?”

There was a clicking sound over him, the kind instantly recognizable as a Geiger counter.

“Bad?”

“No, I think we’ve cleaned you up just fine. This level is higher than we want it to be, but it’s been steadily going down as we’ve cleared out your system. It’s going to keep going down.”

Someone was rewrapping his hand, and someone put another blanket on him. The tube under his nose, the canula, was taken away, and an oxygen mask replaced it. There was a loud shuffling of plastic bags.

“You can come over here,” said Nurse Cathy. “I’m just going to be checking some vitals, and the doctor should be here soon.”

“Dangerous,” said Miles. “I’m radioactive.”

“We’re okay, Miles,” said his dad, a lot closer. “We’re wearing protective gear, and we have dosimeters keeping track of our exposure. We’re being safe.”

“How are you feeling, mijo?” asked his mom.

“Hurts,” he admitted.

“What hurts?” she asked, putting her hand on his.

“E’rything,” he said.

“Can’t we give him something?” asked his dad.

“He’s maxed out, even on the new protocol,” said Nurse Cathy. “Ideally, he wouldn’t even be awake yet, but…Doctors Chase and Hawthorne will have to consult again, I think.”

“Water,” said Miles, feeling incredibly rude, but every word was taxing.

“We’ll start you out with some ice chips, okay?”

“I can do that,” said his mom.

“Double glove, please,” said Nurse Cathy.

“Of course.”

The ice chips were nice and soothing.

“‘r there blit’rs in my mouth?”

“They’re a lot better than they were,” said his mom.

“You’ve healed a lot,” said his dad.

“Don’ feel like it.”

“It was really bad, Miles. You’re a lot better than you were. Better than we’d even hoped.”

“A…a bomb?” asked Miles. Memory was coming back to him.

“That’s right, there was a bomb,” said his dad.

“Got shot,” said Miles.

“Yeah, there was a piece of shrapnel in your leg.”

“Why’d they-” He started coughing, and everything hurt so much worse when he was coughing. The blackness was replaced by a hazy white.

«It’s okay, Miles, you’re okay, you’re doing so good, come on baby.»

Miles finally pulled in a full breath, coughed one more time, and then fell back panting on his bed.

«That’s it, baby, let’s slow those breaths down.»

“You got it, Miles.”

“E’rything hurts so bad,” he pressed out of his lips.

«I know, baby. You’re going to be okay. It won’t hurt forever.»

“It’s going to be okay, Miles,” said his dad.

Miles took a while to catch his breath. He felt dizzy.

“I’m going to replace your mask, okay Miles?” asked his mom.

He nodded.

“How bad’s it?” he asked when he had a new mask on (he wondered how many replacement masks there were if that was the protocol).

“You’re a lot better than anyone thought you would be,” said his dad.

“You’ve been stable for the last two days,” said his mom.

“How long?”

“Three and a half,” said his mom.

“M’ algebra test!”

“You cannot be worried about your algebra test right now!”

Who was this, and what had they done with his dad?

“The only thing you need to worry about is getting better, and you’ve got a lot of help with that,” said his mom.

“The bomb?”

“It’s all taken care of,” said his dad. “You don’t have to worry anymore about the bomb. God, you were so fever addled after you defused it, you kept thinking you needed to go back to do it over again. I was terrified you’d try to.”

Miles shook his head. “Why, though? Why…”

“Oh,” said his dad. Miles felt his dad’s big hand come to rest on his shoulder. “It was a white supremacist group. Someone went in and riled them up, I guess. Gave them resources. They decided New York was the ultimate symbol of everything they hated, so they tried to make it uninhabitable.”

Miles felt hollow. It felt so incredibly personal, so deeply disturbing, and he didn’t know what to do with that.

“We catch ‘em?” asked Miles.

“Got a few of them,” said his dad. “The FBI’s still hunting down a few more.”

God, they were still out there. What if they came back?

“I can’t fight them like this!”

“Miles, you’re not fighting anyone!”

“They tried to kill us!” And he’d never felt so much like there was an ‘us’ and a ‘them’ as in that moment. “They want us dead! They won’t stop.”

“They’ve run to ground, Miles. The FBI’s on the case, and those jerks get a bone in their mouth, they don’t let go. Not ever. And the way their plot went, no one’s going to want anything to do with these psychos. Two of their guys are dead of exposure, another’s in worse condition than you are, and one of them’s still recovering from multiple gunshot wounds. That psycho that put them up to it? He’s been in federal custody the last two days, and he’s facing a hell of a lot of charges. He probably wanted to be a martyr, but everyone’s seen what a miserable joke he is.”

Miles sniffled. He felt like he should be crying, but nothing seemed to be coming up. Maybe he was crying, and he couldn’t feel it?

“Anyone else get hurt?”

“Yeah,” said his dad. “Not from the bomb. You kept everyone else from being hurt by the bomb. But yeah, the security guards at the construction site, and someone from the construction company doing a site inspection. They were killed.”

“I should have…” he paused to get his breathing under control. There was definitely something wrong with his tear ducts, because he knew he was supposed to be crying. “I should have been there!”

“Miles, mijo, how could you have been there?” asked his mom.

“My spider sense. It was going off all day! If I’d just gone when I first felt it…”

“You stop that, Miles!” his dad said harshly. “You were _supposed_ to be in school. You were never supposed to be near any of this!”

“I’m Spider-Man! I’m supposed to stop these things!” He didn’t care how much talking hurt. It was supposed to hurt, right now.

“It almost killed you, Miles.”

“It didn’t! Because I’m Spider-Man. And you!” he said, remembering something he was still angry about. “You volunteered! You would have died! How could you do that?! After we lost Uncle Aaron, and you just volunteered, like it was nothing!”

“You what?!” asked Rio.

“You think I didn’t know that?” his dad asked him. “I knew exactly what I was doing, and what it would mean. And it would have been worth it to keep you safe!”

Miles shook his head.

“Please stop,” said his mom, “both of you, please. We’re all together, and we’re all alive.”

“This family doesn’t run away from anything,” said Miles.

“Oh, mijo. I never meant for you to turn that into a battle cry,” said his mom.

“No, you said it to me exactly when I needed to hear it,” said Miles.

“What did you say?” was his dad’s quick response.

“After Peter Parker died,” said Miles, uncertain by his dad’s sharp reaction. “I knew the city was in danger. And I asked if you guys would ever think of leaving. I needed to hear that. It helped me. And when you came to my dorm, Dad. You didn’t even know if I was there, but you told me you believed in me, that everything I needed was inside of me. I was lost then, and I couldn’t have done what I did that day without you.”

“Miles,” said his dad, and…Miles had never heard him sounding so defeated.

“We just want you to be safe,” said his mom.

“How can any of us ever be safe?” asked Miles. They lived in a world of monsters both mundane and extraordinary.

“Shhh, mijo, there have always been people in this world who wanted to hurt us. That has never stopped this family from thriving, and we’re not going to stop now.”

It would be easier to believe that if Miles in any way felt as though he was thriving. But he was blind and weak, and everything hurt.

!!!!!

Jefferson rang the doorbell with a buzzing thrum seeming to suffuse his body. He’d been wanting to come out here for days now, to have this reckoning, but he’d had no intention of leaving his son’s side until he’d woken up. Officer Biggs had taken over the ‘protective detail’ past the quarantine points, keeping it to only people in the know.

A frowning and contemplative face greeted him when the door opened.

“You here as a cop, or is this a social visit?” she asked.

A nasty part of him wanted to say he _was_ there as a cop. A part of him wanted to make her sweat.

But he wasn’t here as a cop, and he had compromised himself enough for one lifetime.

“I’m here as a father,” he told her.

She nodded, her expression softening just a little. But all she said was, “Then come back when you’re dressed like one.”

Then she shut the door in his face.

He stood there fuming for a minute. Surely she _knew_ why he was there. Surely she had some remorse? Some sense that she had done wrong?

Why _was_ he still in uniform?

He huffed a breath, and turned back to his car. He secured his sidearm and his taser, took off his belt, and then took off his uniform shirt. He had a dark long-sleeved t-shirt on underneath. With tactical pants and boots on, he supposed he still looked like a cop, but this would have to do.

This time, she held the door open for him and waved him in.

“What do you take in your tea?”

“I’m not here for tea,” he told her.

“Look, we’re both upset, if for different reasons. But you’re not here as a cop, so we’re keeping things civil, aren’t we? And there are rules to civility. Now, do you take cream or sugar?”

He huffed. Again.

“Both,” he said.

She showed him to her couch and disappeared into the kitchen. He spent the grace period practicing what he wanted to say in his head until she brought in the tea service. He eyeballed a familiar but uncommon brand of cookie.

He took a sip, for politeness’s sake. At least it was good tea.

“Five extra spider people came to this universe through the collider experiment. Security footage from Fisk’s collider shows that they all returned to their home universe, taking their costumes and their web-shooters with them. So that leaves me with one place that he could have gotten his equipment. And this,” he said holding up a cookie. “This is his favorite brand.”

“Yes,” said May Parker, “I have in fact had your son over for tea. He’s delightful company, by the way. You know, he always has this very poppy art to show off when he comes.”

“How could you enable him like this? In secret?”

She sighed, and he was instantly aware of the heavy sadness that cloaked her. Had cloaked her since he had arrived. Likely had been present for the last three months.

“I won’t lie, and say that I had no ulterior motive, the night of supercollider. If he hadn’t gone, then an alternate reality version of my boy would have stayed behind and died to save a universe that wasn’t his. Because Miles wasn’t ready. It was clear as day all the while they were plotting out the mission. He wasn’t ready, so he was left behind. But then he showed back up at my place, and I wasn’t the slightest bit surprised; I know how this whole thing works, by now. Of course he came, and he had that spark in him. That spark that said he was ready; that he didn’t just have spider-powers, but that he _was_ Spider-Man. So I gave him the web-shooters I’d prepared for him, and he prepared his costume, and then he saved us all.

“But the real answer to your question is: What makes you think any of us ever had any choice in the matter?”

“What does that even mean?” Jefferson asked, out of frustration more than a lack of understanding. Because he had a sinking feeling he already knew where this was going.

“It means that Miles was bitten by that spider the day before my boy died, Mr. Davis.”

“You’re going to tell me it was fate?”

She scoffed. “Fate, destiny, as though there’s some benevolent deity taking care of us. I don’t believe in fate. No, there’s just a power in this multiverse that has a vested interest in keeping things steady, and it picks its acolytes to fight its cause unknowing.”

“Just because a spider bit Miles a day before-”

“Do you know where the spider came from? Where Miles was? When _my_ boy was shoved into the stream of the supercollider, and summoned a squadron of spider people, a spider came through as well, _twenty-four hours in advance._ And there was Miles, ready to be bit, because his uncle had taken him down into the tunnels to put up some art. Tunnels he knew about because of his work for Fisk. A job that perfectly positioned him to die in your son’s arms. Just as Ben died in Peter’s. Just as many Ben’s have died in many Peter’s arms in wildly different universes. No, I don’t believe it’s a coincidence.”

“You really think it was all planned out?” asked Jefferson. “Like some, some, being, is playing chess with our lives?”

“I think that your son returned to the tunnels to find an extra-dimensional glitching spider, just as Peter was fighting his last battle. I think the structure of multiple universes was threatened, and Peter wasn’t quite up for the challenge, and so Miles was in just the right place at just the right time to inherit his mantle, and then he was in just the right place at just the right time to receive his mission. And then he visited Peter’s grave, just in time to meet an alternate universe version of him, who was able to show him the ropes. And then you visited him at just the right time to tell him you believe in him, allowing him to find himself.”

“And you’re okay with all this?!”

“They replaced my boy instead of saving him,” she said, with hatred dripping in her voice. “They sacrificed my husband. I would burn it _all_ to the ground if I could.”

“So why enable him?”

“Because he’ll do it anyway. That’s who he is. He might think he can give it up at times. Peter had his own crises of faith. He’d always get drawn back in; feel the weight of responsibility. But for years, my boy did this on his own. He was alone with his burden. I helped your son because I didn’t want him to do it without me. Because I can help him, and I have. I know this business inside and out by now, and I’d like to think I’ve done well by him.”

“You didn’t tell him not to go into triad territory.”

“No, I told him about the bounty, so he’d know. But he wouldn’t be Spider-Man if he let that stop him.”

“No, see, you have this idea, no matter how much you hate it, you have this idea in your head of who Spider-Man is, and who he’s supposed to be, like Miles is some sort of knight in shining armor. But he’s a kid, and he’s spent the last four days in critical care from radiation poisoning. Someone should have stopped him,” said Jefferson.

“And who do you suppose would die to get him back on track? Or would he just be replaced as callously as my boy was?”

“I can’t…I can’t accept that we’re powerless in this. I can’t accept that someone else made me go and talk to my boy. _I_ talked to him, those were _my_ words!”

“Of course they were your words,” she said. “Just as Ben once gave his own words to Peter. No one put them into your mouths, I don’t think. You just happened to say them exactly when they needed to be said.”

“But-”

“You want to hear about another coincidence, Mr. Davis?”

“Alright,” he said, feeling as powerless as he had claimed not to be.

“Do you know how Peter was bitten? It wasn’t a displaced extra-dimensional spider. It was a lab specimen from Oscorp. It escaped containment from its lab on the same day Peter’s school had a field trip there. Just happenstance that Peter and his class were there that day, the right place, the right time. Except, that that was also the lab Peter’s father used to work in. It was Richard’s project that eventually became the experiment they were conducting. It was Richard’s DNA that went into that original project. Peter eventually figured out, that if _that_ spider had bitten literally anyone else, they would have died, Mr. Davis.”

“So why did Miles survive?”

“Maybe because out of all the radioactive spiders in all of the multiverse, the right spider with the right DNA came through for Miles,” she said. “Or maybe all radioactive spiders are not made equally, and there was no genetic key to this one. I don't know. The point is, we all make our own choices. We’re still ourselves. But there’s a spider weaving it’s web around us, nudging us down the paths that suit it.”

“So where does that leave Miles?”

“It leaves him with a job to do. One he’s chosen himself, no matter the how’s and the why’s. It’s not a terrible job, I don’t think. It’s hard, and demanding, but it meant everything to Peter. He did good. He did so much good, more than you’ll ever know. Saved this _world_ more times than anyone’s known. And Miles will too. It’ll help if he has you in his corner. You called it a chess game; that would make Miles the queen, powerful and mobile. I guess that would actually make _you_ the knight in shining armor. A little rigid, perhaps, but also a powerful hidden defender.”

Jefferson huffed. “Ma’am, my son’s seen more death than some combat veterans at this point. I suppose I understand where you’re coming from now. I understand why you’ve accepted this. But I have to try to save my son.”

“I hope you can,” said May Parker. “And I hope it won’t cost you everything.”

!!!!!

“So, what's going on out in the city?" asked Miles.

“Things are settling down," said his mom.

“But like, there was so much chaos that day. Is everyone alright?"

“Everything's fine, Miles, don't worry about it,” said his dad.

Don’t worry about it? He’d disappeared from the city right when it got thrown into a huge panic. There had to be ramifications to that, crime was probably up, stress was up, racial tensions, drug use, domestic violence, suicide. Here Miles was laying in bed all day.

He felt like he'd abandoned the city.

“So…does everyone know I’m Spider-Man?” he asked, abandoning one stressful topic for another.

“A lot more people know now than used to,” said his dad.

… “Okay,” said Miles.

His dad sighed.

«Just tell him,» his mother said.

“There’s been a coverup.”

“There has?” asked Miles, more than a little confused by the simple statement.

“Part of it is, no one wants to deal with an unmasked Spider-Man. Not the police, not the district attorney. Not even the Feds, though fortunately you shouldn’t fall under their jurisdiction anyway.”

“And you’re okay with that?” Miles asked tentatively, because if there was a word he would never associate with his dad, it was ‘coverup’.

“Of course I’m not okay with it, Miles. But this is the only thing we figure can keep you safe.”

“Oh,” said Miles.

“If you didn’t have dozens of dangerous enemies, then I’d say ‘no.’ I’d say I could deal with the scandal of being an officer who didn’t realize his son was a vigilante. I’d say you could deal with delinquency court and probation. Hell, I’d slap a GPS cuff on you myself.”

Miles was ambivalent about the fact he was having this conversation when he couldn’t see anything. On the one hand, no awkward eye contact. On the other hand, he had no idea what expression was on his dad’s face right now, and just how bad was it? He still had no idea how much trouble he was in with his parents.

“I’m sorry,” he said, because he did understand. His dad was sacrificing his integrity for him, and that wasn’t nothing.

"I can't lose you, Miles. I won't."

“And we haven’t,” said his mom. «We’re all here together.»

Miles considered that he was recovering from his second New York-wide existential crisis.

A wave of pain hit him then. It seemed to flare up whenever he got himself worked up.

“Ssshhhh, mijo, I’ve got you,” said his mom, rubbing at his shoulder.

Miles just tried to breathe through it. He knew he was maxed out again on his pain medication, even though they’d upped that max again.

“Would your music help, Miles?” asked his dad.

Miles nodded his head, and his dad slipped earbuds in for him. Miles was prepared to have to walk his dad through his Spotify login, but it only took a few seconds for one of his playlists to start playing.

It did help.

“Is that my phone?” he asked after the first song.

“Yeah,” said his dad. He put it down by Miles’s hand, for all the good it would do Miles in his current state. He could turn the volume up or down, he supposed.

“I bet you got my homework from Visions too,” said Miles. The pain was receding again, and it was easier to be a little cheeky when everything wasn’t pain.

“Haven’t been, though we’ll have to at some point,” said his dad. “Ganke brought this by the night everything happened.”

“Oh,” said Miles. “So, um, you’ve talked to Ganke?”

“Is that your way of asking if I realized Ganke was in on it the whole time?”

“I mean, not the _whole_ time,” said Miles.

“Oh, excuse me, 99% of the time you were out superheroing,” said his dad. “You should give him a call. I’m sure he’d be relieved to hear from you.

Miles used the voice assistant on his phone to call since it was nice to be at least a tiny bit autonomous.

“Dude!”

“Hey, Ganke,” said Miles.

“You’re alive!” said Ganke. “I mean, I knew you were alive, but like, it’s good to hear you, being alive, and whatnot.”

“Aw, you weren’t worried, were you?” asked Miles, well aware he was treading on thin ice to talk so flippantly about it with his parents in the room.

“I was a _little_ worried,” said Ganke, “but I knew you’d pull through.”

“Well, if I could pull through a little faster, I’d be a lot happier.”

“Any idea how long you’ll be down for?” asked Ganke.

“Bro, I don’t know. They haven’t even taken the bandages off my eyes yet.”

“Are your eyes okay?” asked Ganke.

“All I know is there’s a lotta soft tissue damage to my face, and my face might be like, very temporarily, very ugly.”

“I mean, you looked pretty rough on the footage,” said Ganke.

“There’s footage?!” asked Miles.

Why hadn’t anyone said anything? His dad said there was a cover-up!

“Yeah, but it’s like I was saying, you can’t even tell it’s you," said Ganke. “There was a news helicopter, it couldn’t get too close because of airspace restrictions and the angle, but it got footage of you walking out of the tower with your mask off. But like, even me looking at it knowing it’s you, I can't hardly tell. You were super jacked up, man.”

“Thank god for spider healing,” said Miles.

“I still feel like you can’t call all of your powers spider-powers if they don’t have anything to do with spiders,” said Ganke.

“Man, whatever, dude,” said Miles. “I’ll be back in no time, just you wait.”

“Looking forward to it,” said Ganke. “You know half the school’s wondering who you kissed.”

“Kissed?” asked Miles.

“Everyone thinks you have mono," said Ganke.

“I mean, is anyone else home with mono?” asked Miles.

“Nah,” said Ganke. “That’s why everyone’s speculating about those exchange students that just left.”

“Nice, yeah, let everyone think I was kissing hot foreigners,” said Miles.

He could practically hear his parents rolling their eyes.

“And dude, you should see how many people are repping Spider-Man around the school these days.”

“Nice,” said Miles. “Hey, you get the castle you were talking about?”

“My guy, the city just barely opened up again. I haven’t been to the Lego store. But I got that thing reserved, don’t you worry. Hogwarts is mine.”

“City was on lockdown and you didn’t go loot the Lego store? You _really_ must have been worried about me.”

“Just a little,” said Ganke.

“Well, you can get Hogwarts in peace, now you know I’m on the mend,” said Miles.

“Maybe I’ll let you help build it if you get better fast enough,” said Ganke.

“I’ll be there in no time,” said Miles.

They talked a while longer about the craziness of everything around them, before saying their good byes.

They might have talked longer, but Miles was so tired. Never mind that he’d only woken up again an hour ago.

Everything was exhausting right now.

“You know, you need to stop talking about your healing like it’s always just going to fix everything,” said his dad, and it was the tone of voice that said he was really upset, but he didn’t want to start a fight with Miles.

“I mean…it’s been pretty reliable so far,” said Miles, not really sure where his dad was coming from.

“Except for when it wasn’t,” said his dad.

Miles furrowed his brow (or at least he thought he did, it was hard to tell under the bandages), he couldn’t think of what his dad was talking about, unless he was talking about Peter Parker. Which wasn’t fair, because Miles had never acted like nothing could kill him. He’d gotten that lesson before he’d ever put on the mask.

“You almost died, mijo,” his mom told him.

“I know,” Miles said gruffly. “And my spider healing saved me. You guys basically said so yourselves.”

“She's not talking about your initial exposure, Miles,” said his dad. “Yeah, your doctors were fast to tell us about how incredible it was, wounds practically healing right in front of them. We were pretty hopeful, at first. Until it was all too much for your body to take, and you just stopped healing. Next thing we knew, your white blood cell count was next to nothing, and an infection set it fast.”

“Oh,” said Miles. It was really weird being told about something so big that had happened to him, that he had no memory of.

“We didn’t think you were going to make it, Miles! They were pouring treatment after treatment into you, and you were fading right before our eyes.”

“What happened?” asked Miles.

“They managed to get your immune system to rally faster than the infection was able to run through you,” said his dad. “You’re still not healing as fast as you were when you first came in.”

“Your body is playing catch-up, mijo,” said his mom. “It has limits. It’s going to take some time to get your strength back up.”

“How long though?” asked Miles, feeling so frustrated. The feeling returned again, that he was supposed to be crying, but no tears were coming. He hated that feeling.

“We don’t know, Miles.” said his mom.

“Well, isn’t there anything that can jump-start everything? Get me out of here faster. Its…Everyone knows I’m here! I know you don’t want me fighting anyone, but what if…”

“No one’s getting to you here,” said his dad.

“You don’t know that! I’m completely defenseless, like this! I want to take the bandages off. I want to at least be able to see, so I can…I don’t like this! I’m not…”

Everything hurt, oh, but did everything hurt, and he curled up on his side to help relieve some of the tension.

His parents were trying to soothe him, calm him down.

“Let me take these off,” said Miles, his hands going to the bandages that were around his eyes.

“Miles, mijo, we’ll talk to the doctor about those in less than an hour,” said his mom. Her hands taking his and holding them firmly.

“Unless I fall asleep again like I did last time,” said Miles.

“We’ll wake you up if you do,” said his dad. “Just breathe, Miles.”

“Why didn’t you wake me up last time?” asked Miles.

“We’ll wake you up this time,” said his dad. “I know this is scary right now, but we don’t want to do anything that can jeopardize your recovery.”

«Take a deep breath, mijo,» said his mom.

“It hurts!” said Miles.

“Hyperventilating hurts,” said his mom. “Slow it down, and ride it out.”

Miles tried to take a deeper breath, to limited success.

“And I’m not scared!” he said, before trying to take another breath. “I just want to see…in case anyone comes in here.”

“That’s why I’m here,” said his dad. “That’s why there’s so much security here, to keep you safe.”

“I don’t…”

«You’re safe, mijo. Listen to your papá. It’s going to be okay, and the doctor’s going to look at your eyes in just a little bit.»

“Wait,” said Miles.

“Deep breaths, sweetheart,” said his dad, rubbing his back.

“Why’s the doctor looking at my _eyes_?” asked Miles. “I thought it was just blisters and stuff they didn’t want to get infected.” He hadn’t wanted to think too much about why his tear ducts might not be working.

«We’re a little worried about your eyes,» said his mom. «We’re not sure how well they’ve healed after their exposure.»

“But, they’ll heal with everything else,” said Miles.

“That’s the hope,” said his dad.

“Why are you saying it like that?!” asked Miles.

«Mijo, it’s too soon to worry about it. Now that you’re awake, the doctor will be able to take a good look at your eyes, and then we’ll know more.»

“What if it’s bad?” asked Miles.

«Then we’ll keep in mind that it could be a bad that can get better,» said his mom.

“If it’s bad, then your spider healing can help take care of it,” said his dad.

“I thought you didn’t want me to over-rely on my healing,” said Miles.

“Yeah, well, now I’m trying to make you feel better,” said his dad. “I don’t want you trying to take every kind of risk because you think you can heal from anything, but whatever it is that heals you is still amazing. It’s why you’re still with us now. And Miles, whatever shape your eyes wind up being in, your mom and I are right here with you, and we’ll figure it out together, okay?”

Miles nodded.

“You want me to turn your music back on?” his dad asked.

Miles nodded again. He knew he should say something back, thank his dad for his thoughtfulness, or apologize for spazzing out on them. But he was too exhausted to form the words. He sunk himself down into his music.

He tried not to fall asleep again.

!!!!!

He fell asleep again.


	2. The Less Said the Better

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's hard to feel super when you're in the hospital.

His mom shook him awake a while later, just like she’d promised.

“And how are we doing today?”

Miles tensed at the new voice in the room, very much disliking that he couldn’t see who it was. But then recognition came to him.

“Dr. Chase?” he asked. He’d met the man on a few occasions during different hospital events, and his mom had already mentioned that he was the doctor who had been working on him from the very beginning.

“That’s right. It’s good to see you again, Miles,” said Doctor Chase. “Good to see you conscious, at any rate.”

“Mmm, not so good to _be_ conscious,” Miles admitted.

“Yes, I’ve been hearing that the medication we have you on hasn’t been up to the task. How is the pain right now?”

“Five out of ten, I guess,” said Miles. His mom had brought the pain scale home to query about his stomach aches and skinned knees.

“How bad has it gotten, so far?”

“Like, an eight, but like, a full-body eight.”

“We’re going to be reformulating your opiate protocol, but we’re waiting on some blood work until we do, and even then, we’ll have to run it by the hospital board. It’s going to be a little while before we can see about upping the dose again.”

Miles nodded.

“So, you’re going to look at my eyes?” he asked.

“Well, I’m going to be looking at a whole lot of you,” said Dr. Chase. “Is that where you’d like to start?”

“Yeah,” he said.

“Let’s get to it, then,” said Dr. Chase.

The doctor approached him and began unwrapping the band of gauze that went around his head. Though it hadn’t been all that tight, even just losing that felt a little relieving.

“You’re going to feel a little pull from this tape here,” said Dr. Chase.

The tape was holding down the two sand-dollar-sized pads they had covering his eyes. As soon as they were gone, Miles pulled open his eyelids, struggling against the accumulated gunk and crust.

“Everything’s cloudy,” he said, fear stabbing in his heart. He could barely see the difference between light and dark, and what if this was permanent?

“Alright,” said Dr. Chase, not sounding alarmed at all. “We’re going to use a little water to clean everything out. Rio?”

“I’ve got it," she said. “I’ve got a little squeeze bottle, Miles. I’m going to use it to flush out your eyes, okay?”

“Okay,” said Miles, not sure if they were expecting it to make a difference or not.

He must have been doing a bad job of keeping his cool, because his dad, sitting opposite his mom, took his hand and gave it a squeeze.

“Try to blink every few seconds,” his mom told him, as she pressed a pad to the side of his face, to catch the water, he realized, “but otherwise hold your eyes open for me, okay?”

Miles nodded.

He hated this, being so completely dependent, even if it was his mom.

It was a tiny stream of water that hit his eye. It wasn’t painful, but definitely uncomfortable. It took a good bit of concentration not to squeeze his eyes shut. It took him a few seconds to realize (painfully) that he was holding his breath.

He hated this.

But when that eye was finished, and his mom was dabbing away at the area with a gauze pad, he saw an improvement.

“It's not cloudy, but…it’s still really blurry.”

He could make out the forms of everyone around him, and the colors of what they were wearing, but not much more than that.

“Let’s get the other eye, mijo, and then Dr. Chase will see how things are looking.”

It was a little easier doing it the second time, if only because he knew this time that it would actually help (and also because he was realizing just how dry his eyes had been).

“I think this one’s less blurry,” said Miles when it was done. He spent a few seconds testing opening and closing his eyes in turn. With his right eye, he could make out actual facial details on the people around him. Everything was just colorful blobs to his left.

“Then you’re better off than you were two minutes ago, so that's progress already,” said Dr. Chase.

“You’re just like, super optimistic, aren't you?” asked Miles.

“It’s easy to be optimistic with a patient like you,” said Dr. Chase. “You keep on beating the odds, we'll have you out of here in no time.”

“Sounds good to me," said Miles, though, to him it didn’t feel like he was recovering quickly at all.

“Alright, let’s get a good look here. I’ll be shining a light in your eyes, sorry to say, but if you could just stare straight forward for me, that would be perfect.”

Miles had never found eye tests to be a good time, but at least it was just a tedious kind of unpleasant, which was markedly better than every other sensation his body was dealing with.

“Well, the good news is the cataracts don’t seem to have come back,” said Dr. Chase.

“I had cataracts? Wait, what are cataracts?”

“It’s when the lens in your eyes turns opaque,” said his mom. “It's a good thing it cleared up on its own because you would have needed surgery to swap them out, otherwise.”

“Okay, but then what’s making everything blurry?” he asked.

“I’m thinking glaucoma,” said Dr. Chase. “Most likely due to inflammation; it’s throwing off the curvature of your eye. Once we get you sitting up in a bit, I’ll bring in a bit of equipment to take a closer look to see for sure. But I’m thinking it should go away as the inflammation goes down.”

“And if it's not due to inflammation?” asked his dad.

“Then we'll have to look at some other potential causes. He may just wind up needing glasses if there's long term damage to the eye causing the malformation, though there would likely be surgical options to correct it.”

“Everything else checks out though?” asked Miles.

“Other than the lack of production from your lacrimal glands. We've got some eye drops for you to help keep your eyes moistened.”

“Is that going to heal?” asked Miles.

“That's going to depend on how bad the damage is. It _is_ a regenerative tissue, but it may not if the damage is too extensive.”

Miles didn’t like the idea of having dry eyes for the rest of his life.

“Okay, what’s next then?”

What was next was removing bandages from all over his body, because there was damage all over his body, if mostly contained to the front of him. It was pretty relieving getting the bandages taken off of his hands and arms. Having some mobility in his hands was nice, and even if his arms were still hooked up with tubes and wires, he still felt like he was just that much more mobile. Though, as relieving as it was, more movement also brought more pain with it. It kind of made Miles wish he'd stayed asleep.

“So, I thought my healing was like, in high gear at first,” Miles said as his arms were poked and prodded at. “Shouldn’t this little stuff on my skin have healed already?”

“Hmm, they did actually. These lesions are the second wave, and they are still healing pretty well. If not for our little ruse, I’d suggest leaving some of these uncovered.”

“Our ruse?”

“We’re pretending the damage is a lot worse than it is, and that’s why we can’t get a good picture of you,” said his dad.

“Oh,” said Miles.

“Not these hands though,” said Dr. Chase. “We saw some of the worst damage here, so this is actually a lot improved from how you were when you first got here. But the tissue here still definitely needs bandaging.”

Miles couldn’t make out the damage on his hands very clearly; he just knew they hurt.

It felt really good to have the bandages taped down on his chest removed, up until he decided to take a really deep breath, and then everything just hurt so much.

“Why does breathing hurt so much?!” he cried as his mom did her best to comfort him without being able to scoop him up in a big hug.

“You took a lot of damage to your lungs,” said Dr. Chase.

“Ohhhh, radiation sucks so bad,” said Miles.

“Breathe through it, mijo,” said his mom.

"Breathing hurts,” he reminded her.

“You going to stop breathing?” asked his dad.

Miles huffed, and that hurt too, but no, he wasn’t going to stop breathing.

“Come on, Miles, breathe with me here.” His dad took Miles’s hand and placed it on his chest.

Miles breathed with him for a bit. The effect was lessened with a leaded apron between them, but he could still feel the movement of his father’s chest with every breath.

“You haven’t had to do that since I was a kid,” he said eventually.

“Who ever told you you weren’t still a kid?”

There was a lot more poking and prodding around his chest and abdomen than there was around his arms. Mostly just the normal physical check-up sort of stuff, except not with the accompanying good bill of health Miles was used to. There was a lot of tenderness in his stomach. There were areas that were supposed to be soft that were firm instead. Apparently, while his insides weren’t as bad as his outsides, they’d still taken a good bit of damage.

“Alright, Miles,” said Dr. Chase. “Time to go below the belt, here.”

“Mmmm, pretty sure radiation stops at the beltline,” said Miles.

“Afraid not,” said Dr. Chase. “But you get to decide if one, both, or neither of your parents stick around.”

“Uhhhh.”

It had been a while since Miles had felt comfortable running around their home in his birthday suit. His dad hadn’t seen him undressed since Miles had gone to Visions, and they weren’t sharing the bathroom so often, and it had been a good bit longer since his mom was allowed to walk in on him changing. And in fact, that part of his last physical exam had been done with just him and the doctor. So really, he didn’t want either of his parents to hang around.

“Um, Dad can stay,” he said.

He didn’t want to be alone with this, and he hadn’t realized that until he’d had the option put in front of him. For the first time, he let himself accept the fact that he was afraid. Not of how weak he was in the moment, or how close they were to someone discovering his secret identity. He was scared for his health. He was scared he wasn’t going to recover. He was scared that at any moment, Dr. Chase was going to pronounce something that was going to be permanently wrong with him.

His mom put a comforting hand on his forehead before she left (kisses would wait for when he was less radioactive). Dr. Chase started unwrapping him further.

“Wait, what the heck is that?!” asked Miles, feeling a swoop in his stomach when certain things were delicately revealed.

“That would be a catheter,” said Dr. Chase.

“That's been there this whole time?!”

“Just about the whole time you’ve been here,” said Dr. Chase.

Miles groaned in distress. This was so not okay, and for the record, he was so tired of discovering new things going on with his body that had been masked under the deep pain that pervaded all of him.

“Well, can it come out now?” he asked, deeply uncomfortable with its presence.

“When we’ve assessed that you’re mobile, and can handle things on your own,” said Dr. Chase. “And please don’t try to rip this tube out like that other tube you yanked out. That wouldn't be fun for anyone.”

Miles groaned again, not caring how dramatic he was being. His dad gave his shoulder a reassuring squeeze.

“You’ll be glad to know, the tissue around here heals pretty quickly,” said Dr. Chase. “The lesions have healed almost completely.”

“So I definitely, um, I nuked my stuff?”

“Well, Miles, you nuked pretty much your whole body. Your ‘stuff’ included. Even now, there’s still some swelling evident in the gonads, and the surrounding lymph nodes.”

“That’s not good," said Miles.

“Inflammation is an integral part of the healing process,” said Dr. Chase. He settled a cloth over Miles’s midsection to move on to his left leg. “In that sense, swelling is actually a good thing.”

“Okay, but…is everything still going to, um, work?”

Dr. Chase gave a thoughtful hum. “You know, this is going to be another one of those things where I have to say that we’re just going to have to wait and see how things are healing up before we can say one way or another. And of course, I’m saying that a lot more for you, because there are things that have healed in you that really shouldn't have.”

“Like those cataracts,” his dad supplied helpfully.

“Like the cataracts,” agreed Dr. Chase.

“So…”

“Neurologically, you’ve been doing very well,” said Dr. Chase. “You’ve retained good blood flow. At this point, mobility issues aside, I’m not foreseeing difficulty with bladder control or urination, nor in achieving or maintaining erection.”

God, this was mortifying. Why did he have to ask about this?

“As far as hormone and sperm production, that’s the one that’s more of a ‘wait and see,’” said Dr. Chase. “The gonads also have healthy blood flow, but what level of function they’re at, it's hard to say. We’ve only seen a small drop in testosterone levels, which is a good sign, but we can’t rule out complications down the line. Eventually, you’ll want to see a reproductive specialist to assess your swimmers, but there's a very real possibility of infertility.”

“Oh,” said Miles.

“It’s way too early to worry about that, Miles," said his dad.

Miles nodded. Having kids one day wasn’t even something he’d ever put much thought into, but somehow it still hit kind of hard to hear it.

He kind of felt like he was feeling too many things, at the moment, and he wasn’t quite sure what all of those feelings were. But he realized that one of those things he was feeling was shame. Shame that he might not be able to live up to an aspect of manhood that he’d never even put any thought into. Shame that his dad was there to hear about it, even if he still didn’t want his dad to be anywhere else but there with him.

He didn't pay too much attention to his legs being examined. There were more lesions there. Something about a blood clot he’d had. As long as his legs would work fine, he’d be okay. The doctor tapped at his knees with a mallet and swiped at the bottom of Miles’s feet, and declared his reflexes were fine.

“I think we can upgrade you to a hospital gown, at this point,” said Dr. Chase, “since certain parts of you don't need to be so wrapped up at the moment.”

“A hospital gown would be nice,” said Miles, who hadn't realized he wasn’t wearing one until the exam had started, and was relieved that no one would be handling his bits anymore at the moment.

They got a gown on him, and his mom came back in the room, but even then the exam wasn’t over. It just got more painful and exhausting, as Miles needed to move around more.

“Could you bend this for me, Miles?” asked Dr. Chase, holding out a metal rod.

“Uhh, sure,” said Miles. His hands and arms were sore and protested the movement, but he bent the rod all the way around in a loop. He didn’t think this was a normal part of a physical exam.

“Alright, super strength is still in evidence. How did that feel? Any harder than it usually would be?”

“Everything’s harder than it usually would be," said Miles. “But, um, it was tiring. I wouldn’t want to have to do it again right now.”

“Alright,” said Dr. Chase. “Can you stick to things with your fingers? There’s still burning to your fingertips, so I don’t want you to try to stick to anything substantial. Maybe the fabric of the top bedsheet?”

“I sure hope I can,” said Miles, remembering how he’d fallen from the ceiling before. He let his fingertips press down onto the sheet and then lifted up. The bedsheet pulled up with him.

“There we go,” said Dr. Chase. “We’ll try again with something heavier when things are more healed up. Any idea how it works, though?”

“Someone told me it’s electrostatic force,” said Miles.

“Interesting,” said Dr. Chase. “Now, we definitely don’t want to try out your electric shock ability here in the hospital. But can you see if you can turn invisible?”

“Uh, sure,” said Miles. He let the coldness wash over him that he always felt when he went invisible.

“That’s crazy,” said Dr. Chase. “Oh, look at that, your oxygen meter thinks you’ve disappeared. How does it feel to be invisible? Now, I mean, not in general.”

“I just have to concentrate on it to keep it from dropping. I don't think it's straining anything.”

“Is there a limit to how long you can stay invisible?”

“I don't know,” said Miles. “I’ve never tried to hold it up for too long.”

“Well, let's not try to find a limit today,” said Dr. Chase.

The next thing he wanted to check on was if Miles could sit up and swing his legs over the side of the bed. He could, with a lot of shifting and groaning to get into position, and rearranging of tubes and wires. It was deeply uncomfortable.

“Alright, well now’s a good time to get a better look at those eyes of yours. I’ll be right back. Rio, if you could administer the eye drops?”

“No problem,” said his mom to Dr. Chase’s already retreating back. To Miles, she said, "You’re doing really well."

“If you say so," said Miles.

Putting in the eye drops was uncomfortable, but a very mundane kind of uncomfortable. Miles couldn't make out much of the cart the doctor wheeled into the room, past that it had some big clunky thing on it.

“Alright, Miles, to start off with, there's a pad right here for you to rest your chin on. And a pad right here to rest your forehead on. I think we’ve got the machine at a comfortable height for you, but let me know if you need me to adjust it.”

“Okay," said Miles, letting himself be guided forward to set his face into the contraption.

“You’ll hear some whirring of motors as I get this thing aligned. And once I do, then all you need to do is keep your eyes forward for me.”

“Okay," said Miles.

“When the machine's doing its thing, it’s going to blow little puffs of air at you, so don't be surprised when it does.”

“I don't know if I can keep myself from blinking when it does," Miles said dubiously.

“Don't worry about not blinking. All you need to do is look straight ahead.”

“If you say so,” said Miles.

The machine whirred, and a soft green circle of light centered itself on his left eye. As promised, it spat puffs of air at him. Miles tried not to blink, because he really felt like he shouldn’t, but blinked anyway. But apparently that was fine because the doctor just moved onto his right eye.

“So what's the verdict?" asked his dad.

“Definitely glaucoma,” said Dr. Chase. “There’s a good bit of pressure built up in the eyes right now, causing the distortion. Moving on, how about we see if you can stand and balance.”

Miles could, with even more shuffling of tubes and wires, for all of three seconds before he collapsed back on the bed hurting all over.

“Good,” said Dr. Chase, “that's good.”

"Doesn't feel good," said Miles, feeling like he'd just run a marathon without any water breaks.

He’d thought he’d feel better being able to see, even if everything was blurry. But he’d never felt so vulnerable as right then, knowing how completely incapacitated he was. (He didn’t see getting himself to the bathroom in his near future).

“You’ve made so much progress, Miles,” said his dad. "You don't even know.”

“And you’re going to make so much more,” said his mom.

“Are we done?” asked Miles. “I don’t…”

“That’s about enough for right now,” said Dr. Chase. “One more thing though, I’d like to see how you’re handling fluids. I know you had some ice chips earlier. Do you think you could handle some water with a straw?”

"I mean, I sure hope so,” said Miles.

It did hurt to swallow, but Miles _was_ able to get the cup of water down.

“Great,” said Dr. Chase. “Maybe later in the day, we’ll see how you handle some juice.”

“What about food?” asked Miles.

“We’ll see how your stomach handles the juice, before we start with some nutrition shakes, and soft bland foods,” said Dr. Chase.

Miles didn't like the sound of that. But he didn't have long to ponder it, because he fell asleep soon after the doctor left the room, while his mom and Nurse Felix were putting new bandages on him.

!!!!!

When Miles woke up again, it was to the sound of a video playing from somewhere. It was just his dad in the room with him. His dad was sitting in a chair by the window, looking at his work computer, the source of the audio.

“I just think that he’s done a really good job. Honestly, it's like we had a pretty smooth transition from one Spider-Man to another. Obviously, he just saved New York, so I’m not complaining.”

“And do you have any concerns about his age?”

“Sure, but like, what are you going to do?”

“Do you think that the state should try to stop him?”

“Dude, how do you stop Spider-Man?”

“Cesium-137, apparently,” his dad muttered.

Or an explosion followed by two massive fists, thought Miles.

“He saved me,” says a new voice. “A bicyclist knocked me into the street, and that boy pulled me back from being run over. At the time, I just thanked him. I hugged him. But knowing what happened to him, how young he is, I should have told him to go home to his mother.”

Miles resisted the urge to squirm uncomfortably.

“Does his age change how you think of him?”

“Of course. He should be home playing video games, not putting his life in danger.”

“Do you think that the state should find a way to keep him from being Spider-Man?”

“No, I just want his parents to keep him home.”

“I think he’s a menace,” says a new voice. “Probably put the bomb there himself.”

“The hell?!” his dad asked.

The hell, Miles thought

“What do you base that belief on?”

“It's a false flag operation, obviously. White nationalists try to destroy New York, a majority white city, by the way, and a black kid stops it? That’s totally contrived. He’s probably not even in the hospital.”

“Man, shut the hell up,” his dad murmured. The click of his mouse signaled the sudden stop of the video. “Put anything on the air these days.”

The room fell into silence, offset only by the noises of all of the machines around him. Miles had never been a fan of silence.

“You guys haven’t said how angry you are with me,” he said.

His dad looked up from the screen.

“Well,” he said, closing his laptop, “we’re definitely not happy with any of the decisions you’ve made to be Spider-Man.”

Which was more diplomatic than Miles was expecting. He considered that maybe he should get himself hospitalized every time he was caught doing something he wasn't supposed to.

“Am I in trouble?”

“I don’t even know what the appropriate parenting response is to finding out your kid is a teenaged superhero vigilante.”

Miles perked up. “You never called Spider-Man a superhero before,” he said.

His dad started. “That's aside from the point,” he said.

Miles felt kind of frustrated, because he really just wanted his dad to get to the point, lay down the law, let him know what was going to happen. Would his parents pull him out of Visions so they could keep a better eye on him? Would his dad actually put a GPS tracker on him? How grounded was he? He needed his computer for school, but that still left his phone and all his art supplies as things his parents could take away from him.

And, “We’re not happy with any of the decisions you’ve made,” still means they’re angry with him, and he'd really like to know how much.

Maybe some of his frustration showed on his face, because his dad said, “Hey, you know none of this has been easy on your mom or me.”

“Yeah, I know,” said Miles.

“I don’t think you do,” said his dad, “because you weren’t there when I was going out of my mind worrying about the spider-kid dying of radiation exposure, only for you to walk out of that building vomiting blood, and having a seizure. You weren’t there when your mom was on the roof of the hospital waiting for a patient she thought for sure was going to die no matter what, and it was you that they pulled out of the helicopter. We have been stared down by the prospect of your death over and over these last few days, and it _hurts_ , Miles.”

“I’m sorry,” said Miles.

“If you’re apologizing, does that mean that you’ll never do it again?” asked his dad.

Miles opened his mouth to say…something, but no words came out.

“That’s about what I thought,” said his dad.

“The city needs me,” said Miles, thinking again about how much people may have needed him these last few days when he wasn't able to be there.

“So do your parents, Miles.”

“I never wanted any of this to hurt you guys,” said Miles. “That’s one of the reasons I kept it a secret.”

“Secrets don’t protect the people they’re kept from,” said his dad.

They fell into silence then, but Miles was still so filled with a nervous energy of all the things left unsaid. Miles had spent so much time asleep lately, and before that, they’d spent so long not talking about things. Now his dad didn’t even want to talk about how much trouble Miles was in. Well, Miles didn’t want to sit in silence.

“You never asked Spider-Man about, um, Uncle Aaron.”

His dad huffed a breath through his nose.

“I guess not,” he said.

“I always…I thought you’d ask,” he said.

“Well, it was obvious pretty quickly that…that he’d been shot. And none of the spider people then were seen using a gun. Not really your guys’ MO, I guess. And, the more I thought about it, the more it seemed that you had been trying to get him away from all the violence. And, in the wreckage of the collider, we found the gun that shot him, with Fisk’s prints all over. So, I never really needed to ask you, I suppose. Aaron went to work for Fisk as the Prowler, and he got caught in the cross-fire of Fisk’s crusade. I guess, I never asked because…I want Fisk to face justice for what he did to your uncle, but every time I happened to come across the spider-kid, all I wanted to do was make sure he was safe. And asking him for his testimony about a crime lord’s murder never really fit in with that.”

“It wasn’t cross-fire though,” said Miles. “Uncle Aaron saw that it was me there, at May Parker’s house, and he stopped. He pulled my mask back down so no one would see me. He wasn’t going to hurt me, and when King Pin saw him stop, he just shot him. He just shot him like it was nothing, even though he could have shot me instead.”

And Miles has been wanting to say this for months now.

His dad was up and by his side in an instant.

“Miles,” he said. His big hands were delicate on Miles’s arm and the side of his head, as he leaned over Miles in a loose approximation of a hug. And Miles hated that he was so delicate right now he couldn’t have a big bear hug.

“You should have never had to have dealt with any of that.”

“It’s my fault," said Miles. “If I hadn’t been there-”

“If you hadn't been there, then your uncle would have still been working for a man who would kill him for a single misstep. If you hadn’t been there, then the last thing your uncle ever did wouldn’t have been anything so noble as protecting his nephew. Your uncle made so many mistakes in life, Miles, but I know he would have chosen to protect you a million times over, even knowing how it would end.”

“I still don’t…how could he do the things he did? Uncle Aaron, he…I still don’t get how he was Uncle Aaron and the Prowler at the same time.”

“Oh, Miles,” said his dad. “It’s…” He took a seat next to Miles and took a deep breath. "Your uncle always compartmentalized his life. He had the people he truly cared about, and everyone else was either…a distraction, an asset, or a threat. I think it was his way of surviving in a world that had never been kind to him; a world that had treated him like a threat since the age of twelve. He guarded his heart by reserving it for a select few, and locking it away from everyone else. Your uncle loved you so much, so he only ever wanted to show you the best version of himself.”

“I miss him so much,” said Miles, “and sometimes I feel guilty because I know he hurt people, and…”

“You don’t ever have to feel guilty for missing him, Miles. Not ever. I miss him every day. You knew him as his best self, and it’s a tragedy that that version of your uncle lost its chance to grow over the hurt and the brutality that he’d learned. Even if, a part of me is aware that…that at least he’s never going to hurt anyone again. Even as a part of me is relieved that he was able to do one more truly good thing before he died. But I know he saw something in you, Miles. He saw how strong you are; your strength to give your heart out to the people around you, even after all the crap you _have_ been through. If there was one thing that he and I were on the same page on when he died, it’s that we wanted to protect that part of you. We’ve never wanted you to lose the things that we gave up to overcome this world.”

“I never wanted him to die for me,” said Miles.

“I know,” said his dad. “But there was never going to be a version of events where he didn’t try to protect you.”

“Did they, um, did they charge King Pin with it?” asked Miles.

“They did,” said his dad. “A few weeks ago, actually. They added the charge.”

“You never said,” said Miles.

“Yeah, well, I didn’t know you knew about everything,” said his dad. “I didn’t know how to tell you that Wilson Fisk had killed Aaron without telling you all the rest. I didn’t want to damage your memory of your uncle.”

“Too late,” Miles said morosely.

“Was that…that day at May Parker’s house, was that the first time you ran into the Prowler?”

Miles shook his head.

“King Pin had him chasing me,” he said. “I was there when, um, when Peter Parker died. They realized I was there.”

“That was the night you came home,” said his dad.

Miles nodded.

“It was my fault, um, he found me a second time, and I thought I lost him, but I led him to Mrs. Parker’s house, and then…”

“God, Miles, everything you’ve had to deal with…you’re a kid, Miles. Don’t you understand that you shouldn’t have ever had to deal with any of this? Shouldn't have ever been exposed to any of this. How many people have you seen die?”

“I…six,” said Miles. He swallowed hard, painfully. Spider-Man didn’t always get to trouble in time.

“That's not okay, Miles, you’re a child.”

“I’m Spider-Man! It’s my job!”

“It’s not a job, Miles! You didn’t sign up for this, you’re not getting paid for this, it’s illegal! You’re not even old enough for a work permit, for god’s sake.”

“But Spider-Man means something, Dad, and I’m the one that was chosen to carry it on after Peter Parker.”

“Please don’t for one second ever think that bringing Peter Parker into the conversation is a good defense for being Spider-Man.”

“He was an amazing Sider-Man!” said Miles.

“And it killed him, Miles!”

“I know it did! I watched him die! He told me to hide, because _I_ was the only one who could save the city, and I did, and I didn’t even try to do anything when King Pin killed him. _He_ knew that protecting this world was more important than his life. If he hadn’t been there that day, if he hadn’t done what he did, we all would have died when King Pin used his collider. So don’t say that Peter Parker shouldn't have been there, or that it wasn’t worth his sacrifice, because it was! He saved us! And you’re wrong, because I did sign up for this. I never asked for spider-powers, I never wanted to be a superhero, but when I had it all put out in front of me, I chose! I chose to do this. I chose to be Spider-Man. _I_ gave me this job, and I'm old enough to save the world, because I already did when I was younger than I am now!”

“But who’s going to save you?”

“I don’t know,” said Miles. “I’m just…I’ve been doing my best, okay? And I think I’ve been doing an okay job. This is the first time I’ve gotten hurt real bad.”

“Three months isn’t exactly a stellar track record, Miles,” said his dad.

“Yeah, well, it’s not like dirty bomb’s just pop up all the time," said Miles.

«Oh, good, you’re awake,» said his mom, stepping quickly into the room as she completely derailed their conversation. «There’s a social worker here to see you.»

“A social worker?” asked Miles, feeling a bit of whiplash from the sudden change of topic.

His mom took a couple of the big round pads they’d had over his eyes, and set them on his face, before slipping a prepared circlet of gauze around his head over them. There’s already plenty more bandages around his forehead, cheeks, and chin, leaving almost the entirety of his face covered. Miles wrinkled his nose at being blinded again.

“You’ve been in the hospital for the last four days without a parent or guardian as far as the state's concerned,” said his dad. “They need to figure out what to do with you.”

“Uhhh,” said Miles.

“Just don’t tell her any identifying information,” said his dad.

«Tell her you're tired and don't want to talk,» said his mom.

“Wait, does everyone think Spider-Man’s parents abandoned him?” asked Miles.

«Of course they do,» said his mom. «Now remember to be tired.»

“I _am_ tired,” said Miles.

“Yeah, just like that,” said his dad.

He heard his mom leave the room again, and he and his dad waited in awkward silence.

Miles hadn’t been intending to say all of the things he’d just said.

“Hola, chico, you still awake?” asked his mom when she came back in.

“Yeah, I’m awake,” said Miles, not really having to act at all to let his exhaustion seep through. “I kind of feel like I’m going to fall asleep again.”

“Oh, well, just try to stay awake for a little bit longer, and try to talk to this nice lady who came to see you,” said his mom.

Was it Miles’s imagination, or was she laying on her accent more than she usually did?

“Who’s there?” asked Miles, hating that he had been blinded again.

“Hi, there,” said a new voice. “My name’s Ashley. I came to talk with you a little bit today.”

“Okay?”

“I’m something called a social worker. Is that something you’re familiar with?”

“Um, I guess," said Miles. “You’re like, CPS?”

“That’s right,” she said. “With the Department of Children’s Services of New York. I’m here to make sure that you’re being taken care of okay, and figure out where you’ll be going when you’re well enough to discharge from the hospital.”

“Um,” said Miles, “I'll go home, I guess.”

“And where’s home, for you?” she asked.

Miles shifted uncomfortably.

“I’m really tired,” he said. “Could we talk another time?”

He felt absurdly guilty for saying so.

“I could come back another time,” said Ashley. “But before I go, could I ask how you’ve been doing here?”

“Mmm, everything hurts,” said Miles. “And I can’t stay awake much.”

He let his eyes close behind the bandages. His eyelids felt heavy, and he couldn't see anything anyway.

“Do you feel like you’re being taken care of okay?”

“Well, I’m alive, so, probably,” said Miles. He wondered what she’d do if he said he wasn’t.

“Have you been feeling safe at the hospital?”

“Not really,” said Miles. He thought he’d have to lie more than this.

“What makes you feel that way?”

“Everything?” said Miles.

“Is there anyone here that makes you feel unsafe?”

He was not with it enough to be having this conversation.

“No, just everything sucks, and I got a bunch of enemies who know where I am now,” said Miles.

“Is there anything that would make you feel safer?” she asked.

“Not really,” said Miles. Nothing she could do, anyway. “Can I go back to sleep now?”

“In just a minute. I also need to tell you that there’s going to be a court hearing in a couple of days, where your case is going to be discussed.”

“Wait, I thought you were a social worker,” said Miles, tensing up at the words ‘court hearing.’

“I _am_ a social worker. This isn’t the kind of court where you’re in trouble. It’s not a delinquency hearing. It’s the kind of court where judges can make orders to keep kids safe and make sure they’re taken care of.”

“But…” Miles wasn't sure what to even say to that.

“We’d really like it if your parents or your legal guardians could be there. If they could show that they’re in a position to take good care of you, then we wouldn’t need to be involved quite like this. If there's anyone I could contact to notice them about the hearing, I’d be happy to get in touch with them for you.”

Miles shook his head.

“Also, I have to ask, because the court is going to want to know, if you happen to have any Native American ancestry?”

“Huh?" asked Miles.

“American Indian," she clarified, in case that was what Miles hadn't understood. “There's a law that says that it’s important to notify a tribe if we know we’re working with one of their kids.”

His dad had mentioned before that they had some Chickasaw heritage, but Miles honestly didn't know much more than that.

All he said was, "Well, we’re not in any tribe, so…” He didn’t think anyone could track him down by knowing such a little tidbit of information, but he didn’t want to give them anything.

“Alright, well, I'll be back tomorrow to talk with you more about it. There's also going to be a children’s attorney who’s going to be contacting you. It’s their job to represent your voice to the judge and to advocate for your best interests. That's especially important because it looks like you'll still be in the hospital during the hearing.”

Represent your voice, _and_ advocate for your ‘best interests.’ Miles was pretty sure that that meant that the attorney would wind up saying something along the lines of: My client wants to swing off into the sunset, but he's just a dumb kid, so let’s put him in a group home.

“Kay,” he said. “I really am going to sleep now, though.”

“Alright, I’ll head out then. I’ll see you tomorrow. And I’m going to leave my card with Nurse Rio here, in case you want to get any names or contact numbers to me, in the meantime.”

“Kay,” he said again.

“Rest up now,” she said by way of goodbye. “Could I talk to the both of you, please?” she asked his parents.

Miles had actually been planning to go to sleep again. But he couldn’t help but eavesdrop. Blind he may be at the moment, but he still had his enhanced senses.

“How has his recovery been going, relatively speaking?”

“It’s slow but steady,” said his mom. “Better than we could have hoped for.”

“Does the doctor have any kind of timeframe on when he might be discharged?”

“No,” said his mom, “there are too many things left unknown.”

“I don’t suppose you know yet what his medical needs may be when he’s discharged?”

“A normal recovery period for something like this would be years,” said his mom. “There would be a long list of medical needs that I could report to you. Right now, he needs glasses, eye drops, antibiotics, complete intravenous feeding, immune system support, and wound care. I don’t know if he still will when he’s discharged.”

“Wouldn’t that be something? And Officer Davis, does your department share the child’s security concerns?”

‘The child’s?’ They were talking about Spider-Man!

“Of course,” said his dad. “That’s why we have officers posted here.”

“Have there been any attempts to breach the security?”

“So far, just a photographer from the Bugle.”

The social worker made a noise of disgust, which Miles’ shared. Were they just going to take a picture of him unconscious, and vulnerable, and only wearing bandages? Even just the thought of a picture like that getting out there made him deeply uncomfortable in a way he couldn’t quite put into words.

“That was about my reaction,” said his dad, who hadn’t told Miles that someone had tried to breach security already.

“Do you believe the current security is adequate?”

“I wouldn't say ‘no’ to more," said his dad. “The kid has plenty of enemies. Some of them have the resources to try something. The sooner I can get him to a confidential location, the better.”

“And what’s your assessment on his AWOL risk?”

“Well, right now, he can barely stand,” said his dad. “But when he’s recovered, there’s not really much we could do to contain him without pulling out all of the stops.”

“Can you comment on whether or not charges are pending against him?”

Miles’s gut churned.

“You would have to take that up with the city attorney’s office,” said his dad. “There hasn’t been a warrant out for Spider-Man’s arrest in years, but the delinquency court may have other ideas.”

“But to clarify, there’s been no official arrest?”

“That's correct," said his dad.

“That makes my job more and less complicated.”

“How’s that?” asked his dad.

“Collaborating with juvenile probation is a whole other process to deal with, but I wouldn’t mind the help in keeping him in one place.”

“It’ll take an awful lot to keep him somewhere he doesn’t want to be, once he's healed. You sure you’d get what you want out of that?” asked his dad.

“I’m sure we don’t know who he is, or where he lives, or who his parents are, and that means we don't have any kind of leverage to keep him from going out and doing this all over again.”

“Maximum security seems a poor way to repay him,” said his mom.

“So would letting him die,” said the social worker. “You have any other ideas?”

“Mostly just trying to talk sense into him while we have him here," said his dad.

“I’ll wish you luck on that.”

“So, if you don’t think he’ll stick around, why go forward with a dependency court case?”

“Procedure,” she said. “We’ll get Medicaid in place for his treatment. Establish legal authority to make medical decisions. And maybe we _will_ figure out who he is; tomorrow or a year from now. Court lays a groundwork that could help us to effect services at some point in the future, even if he does AWOL now. To say nothing of the fact that he could be discharged with continuing health problems that prevent him from AWOLing, and we’d need to have jurisdiction to actually have a foster home for him to go to.”

“And if his parents do come forward?” asked his dad.

“It would take care of the issue of caretaker absence, but we’d have plenty of questions about their ability to keep him safe. Questions about where they’ve been, up till now, especially if their son’s been missing and they _haven’t_ filed a missing persons report.”

Miles’s gut churned with guilt.

“There actually have been quite a lot of missing persons reports filed since the evacuation,” said his dad, and Miles felt a whole new kind of guilt because he’d left the city in complete chaos.

“I guess I hope he’s one of them,” said the social worker. “Honestly, I’m not sure which I’d prefer, if they knew and didn't stop him, or if they somehow failed to realize their child was a vigilante out at all hours of the night.”

“I suppose I don’t know the answer to that,” said his dad.

Miles wished he’d just gone to sleep like he'd said he would, instead of listening in while someone judged his parents right to their faces, unknowingly, for his actions.

Miles wished he could tell the social worker it wasn’t their fault they hadn’t known. That they both worked full time, and Miles was away at boarding school where he was supposed to be okay. His grades were good, and he hardly ever got caught being AWOL. And Miles always made sure to change his voice around his dad. They couldn’t have known, and they didn't deserve any of this.

Miles didn't want to hear anymore. He shouldn’t have been eavesdropping in the first place. He focused his ears on the machinery in his room instead, and let the sounds pull him down into a listless sleep.

!!!!!

“Sir?”

Jefferson was pulled from his bleak thoughts by another unexpected visitor, though like the last one, he really should have known they’d be by eventually.

“Howie,” said Jefferson, getting up to meet him at the door. “Hey, how have you been doing?”

“I’ve been okay. Everything’s been wild, and I’ve got ridiculous OT, but I’m hanging in there. Yourself?”

Jefferson huffed a breath. “Better, now he’s not comatose.”

“I still can’t believe it was little Miles,” said Howie.

Jefferson wished he could say the same thing. He’d had a lot of time to think lately about all the little things that should have given it away.

“Is he going to be okay?”

“He’ll survive,” said Jefferson. “Beyond that…it’s all up in the air.”

“He really saved us,” said Howie. “I hate that he’s suffered so much for it.”

Jefferson just nodded.

“I um, I came by because there's been a development, and the Captain didn’t want you hearing about it on the news.”

“What is it?” asked Jefferson, his mind immediately going to the name ‘Miles’ suddenly being on every pundit’s lips.

“Federal agents have just arrested Lieutenant James Saughy,” said Howie.

Jefferson’s mind stalled for a moment before processing what he’d just heard. First placing Lieutenant Saughy as their liaison with the Law Enforcement Coordination Program. Then came understanding, and the question of how the FBI had lost a terror cell with enough radioactive material to make a major city uninhabitable had a clear answer. It hadn't been the FBI’s fuckup, not entirely, if they’d actually sent information to the LECP to advise major city’s of the potential threat.

“He sold us out,” said Jefferson, feeling such a rage.

“That’s what everyone’s assuming, but we haven’t gotten official word on the charges,” said Howie.

“He knew our mobilizations, our response times, our disaster plans.”

“Yeah, and he knew when a quarter of our helicopter fleet would be off-line and the perfect time to leak the news to create maximum gridlock,” said Howie. “But that's not the only reason why no one could get to us. Bomb squad east had their copter in for that scheduled maintenance. But bomb squad west? Theirs just wouldn't start. That's why they had to wait for another copter to mobilize to get them. There hasn't been an official statement it was sabotage, but…You think there’s more?”

“More ways he screwed us over?” asked Jefferson.

“More conspirators,” asked Howie.

Being a member of a minority group in the PDNY, even a rookie officer like Howie knew that the force was lousy with bigots, with who knows how many of them being full-on white supremacists. They were a cancer in the ranks that needed to be excised (and needed to be acknowledged in order to be excised), but Jefferson had never quite thought of them in terms of organized undercover enemy agents. Now, he didn't know how else to think of them.

“Do we know if Saughy had business in that precinct?”

Howie shook his head. “Not that I've heard.”

“Then yeah, there might be more cops in on it,” said Jefferson.

“They have to do something about it, now, right?” asked Howie. “There's no more excuses, they have to…they have to purge them out. Sergeant Potts; Officer Baker. A lieutenant just aided and abetted a terror attack on New York, that means they have to get rid of those guys, right?”

It was almost enough to make Jefferson wish there _was_ another mole. Because when had one dirty cop ever been enough to purge out the rest? Sergeant Potts was a racist curmudgeon, and he was also a decorated officer.

“I don’t know, Howie," he said. “But you know you’re way too green to be naming names, right now, don't you?” He hated saying so, but it was his job to look out for Howie and his career. “If there's any kind of house cleaning, you leave it to more established officers.”

“If there isn’t… Could you still do this job, if there isn’t? If the PDNY could go through something like this, and not do anything about it?”

It was a question he hated to have put to him. Jefferson had put so much of himself into the PDNY. There was so much of himself wrapped up in the ethics of protect and serve. He’d always known there were problems in the PDNY, but there were problems everywhere. It hadn't changed the fact that Jefferson had been able to do good work for his community.

Still, he had to say, “I don't know.”

Howie sighed. “I think I do.”

Jefferson nodded and felt a stirring in his gut as he considered that even as they were talking about reform in the department, the both of them were involved in a conspiracy to cover up Miles’s secret identity.

As if sensing his thoughts, Howie asked him, “So what are you going to do about Miles?”

“I’ve had four days, and I still haven’t figured that out, yet,” said Jefferson. "Other than trying to ground him until he's thirty. What do you think your parents would have done if they found out you were a teenaged superhero.”

Howie snorted.

“What?” asked Jefferson.

“You know, I don’t think you ever used to call Spider-Man a superhero?”

Jefferson huffed.

“And my dad was old school. Kept a switch in his office just for me. I wouldn't recommend that, though.”

It made his gut twist just to think of it.

“My mom always asked me questions, though. If I did something wrong, there must have been a reason, and she figured if she could solve the problem, then I wouldn't make that same mistake again.”

“And what do you think about it, looking back?” asked Jefferson.

“Well, I talk to my mom a whole hell of a lot more than I talk to my dad," said Howie with a shrug.

“Yeah,” said Jefferson.

“So I guess you’ve got to ask yourself, why was Miles sneaking out to be a Superhero? What did he get out of it?”

“I don't know that he gets _anything_ out of it. He talks about it like it’s some sacred duty that's been entrusted to him.”

“Hm, ‘With great power comes great responsibility,” said Howie.

“You read those comics growing up?” asked Jefferson. Howie probably would have been in high school when they first came out.

“What New York kid doesn’t?” asked Howie.

Miles sure had. “And yeah, it would be easier if he was doing it because he was bored, or if he wanted the attention. I can keep him busy. I can give him attention. My arguments for him not going out to be Spider-Man are that it's dangerous and it's illegal. But he knew that already. He decided it was worth it. He knows he can save people, and that's what's important to him.”

“I bet that it doesn't help that you’re proud of him for it,” said Howie.

Jefferson hadn’t realized he’d been that transparent about it.

“Damn right, I’m proud of him,” he admitted. His son had saved New York twice. The whole world, depending on how bad the singularity would have gotten from Fisk’s collider. There was a strength of character that Miles had shown over the last three months that had nothing to do with being able to catch speeding cars.

“So, you know there’s been another leak?” said Howie. “It might have been Saughy, some last act of revenge before he was arrested, but who knows?”

“What is it?” asked Jefferson.

“Footage from one of the helicopters at the scene. Of Miles being decontaminated. It’s already hit a few stations. You still can't make out his face much at all, so there's that.”

“They’re airing that on TV?” asked Jefferson.

Howie nodded.

“Why didn't they shove a camera in his OR while they were at it?” he asked, fuming. They had already tried, he supposed.They would have censored the footage, but still, Jefferson had to assume that it had been leaked online first, and that was his son naked and dying thrown up on the nation’s televisions for the ratings of it, being passed around on message boards to be viewed by who knows who. Miles, of course, was going to be devastated.“They had no right to air that.”

“It's already sparked a bit of controversy that they did," said Howie.

Jefferson shook his head. “I just want to take Miles away from all of this,” he said.

“See if country living has enough excitement for any of you?” asked Howie.

“I’ve had enough excitement for one lifetime,” said Jefferson.

He wasn't sure what it said about him, that Howie gave him a dubious look.

!!!!!

«Do you think you can hold this?» asked his mom.

«I think so,» said Miles, flexing his hands a little against their bandages. It hurt to make a fist, with how much damage his hands had taken, but he could manage holding something.

His mom handed him the cup, and he used two hands to hold it, but he held it. Fortunately, there was a straw.

The juice was bland, though Miles wasn’t sure if that was because his tastebuds were still recovering from being nuked, or if it was just that watered down. The blistered tissue in his mouth was pretty much healed, but he suspected his tongue might take a bit longer.

«Just a couple of sips for right now,» said his mom.

Miles wanted to down the whole thing. He wasn't as hungry as he would have expected with a completely empty digestive tract, but his body was still giving him signals to keep drinking.

«Could you taste this for me?» asked Miles.

«Does it taste off to you?» asked his mom.

Miles shook his head. His mom took a sip.

«It’s a little weak,» she said.

«Only a little?» asked Miles.

«Can you tell what flavor it is?»

«Grape?» asked Miles.

«No, it’s apple,» said his mom.

Miles hummed disappointedly. The last thing he wanted was to lose his sense of taste.

Well, maybe not the last thing. He wasn't sure his vision had gotten any better yet. Still. At the very least, he was pretty sure tastebuds grew back just fine even in the absence of spider powers. He’d burnt his enough times already.

«How's your tummy feeling?» asked his mom.

«Okay, I think,» said Miles.

«Let me know if it starts to bother you,» said his mom.

«You got medicine for me if it does?» asked Miles, who thought that nausea was one of the worst ways for the body to mess with you.

«I do,» said his mom, «already approved by your doctors.»

«What, all of them?» asked Miles.

«Just about everything goes by all three of them,» said his mom.

«I still feel kind of weird about Dr. Christie,» said Miles.

«Is that because of her bedside manner, or because-.»

«Because she’s a metahuman specialist, and I’m kind of stuck here?» supplied Miles. «Also her bedside manner.»He couldn’t help but think of Dr. Octavia, and how she had been so keen to watch the effects of inter-dimensional displacement on Peter B. Parker as it was slowly killing him. Dr. Christie had been present for the autopsy of Miles’s predecessor. There had been an article about it, how Peter hadn’t donated his body to science, or anything like that, so they hadn’t been able to study it extensively in all the ways they wanted. Dr. Christie had still been able to put out a couple of papers from what’s she’d observed from the autopsy though.

At the time, Miles had been creeped out at the notion. That of course Peter Parker shouldn’t have been a science experiment in death. He still felt that way to an extent, but now he found himself in the awkward position of benefitting from Dr. Christie’s experience and being worse off for the fact that she hadn’t been able to learn more.

«I think she’s pretty well focused on making sure you get better,» said his mom. «And I'm pretty sure Dr. Chase wouldn’t stand for it if she tried to sneak in to run experiments on you in the middle of the night.»

Miles snorted a laugh. «I'm just saying, I bet she's got a vial of my blood tucked away, she's gonna smuggle it out with her when she leaves.»

«Yeah, that would be a little creepy,» agreed his mom. «I’m still really glad she's here, though. She's been a big help. She and Dr. Nguyen dropped everything to rush out here for you.»

«I know, mom,» said Miles.

«Well, I hope you think about how much work they put into keeping you alive before you think of rushing out into danger again.»

Miles didn’t know what to say to that. They still hadn't really talked everything out, and it still felt like the conversation was hanging over their heads, what his parents were going to do about him being Spider-Man.

«I think my stomach feels okay,» he said.

«Alright, you can finish the cup, and we’ll see about letting you have a meal shake later.»

«Yum,» said Miles, hating how slow the healing process was, even knowing that he was basically racing through it.

«Maybe not a _whole_ meal shake,» said his mom. «Start you out on vanilla, before we try chocolate.»

«Hmmm.»

«You keep making progress like you have been, we’ll have you eating the greasiest spiciest street foods we can find in a week,» his mom said conspiratorially.

Miles grinned.

«How about your ghost pepper asopao?» asked Miles.

«Do spider-powers give you an iron gut?» asked his mom, «because I seem to remember your mouth enjoying that more than your stomach.»

«Not sure about the spider powers,» said Miles, «but I’m willing to suffer for it.»

«Well, you better take care of your recovery if you want to eat it again,» said his mom.

«Oh, I’ll be good,» said Miles.

«You’re always good," said his mom.

Miles smiled.

«Hey mom, were you really not happy with _any_ of my decisions?»

«Is _that_ how your dad said it?» asked his mom.

«Yeah,» he said.

«Hm, well, I’m happy with your decision to care about people,» said his mom.

«Is that a decision?» asked Miles, feeling like his mom might be splitting hairs to find something positive to say to round out his dad's all-or-nothing take.

«It's always a decision to care,» said his mom. «It's a decision that you make over and over again, every day. I just wish you’d found a different way to do it.»

Miles didn’t. His dad would be dead if he hadn’t, and he felt like his parents kept on forgetting that. It wasn't like Miles made a habit of butting in where he wasn't needed. He didn’t go around interrupting cops, or paramedics, or firefighters unless the situation was already out of their control, or his spider-sense was giving him a warning. He did his work when and where people would get hurt if he didn’t.

He decided to change the subject.

«Hey, Mom, I'm sorry about those things the social worker was saying.»

She furrowed her brow at him. «Do spider-powers give you super hearing?»

«Uhhh, yeah,» said Miles.

«Well, that's good to know.»

«I mean it,» said Miles. «She didn’t know what she was talking about. There wasn't any way for you to have known.»

His mother squeezed his shoulder. «A mother _should_ know,» she told him.

«Because her dutiful son tells her when he becomes a superhero, or because you’re supposed to have ESP?»

«Because I should have recognized that something had changed,» said his mom. «I should have recognized my own son's body running around in a unitard on the TV. I should have known where you were in the evenings.»

«Okay, that second one’s silly,» said Miles. «What, were you supposed to recognize me as Spider-Man by the shape of my arms? My distinctive calves? You’re not going to say my bottom, are you?» It was exactly the sort of thing she’d say to tease him, so he had to preempt her.

«Every inch of you," his mom said.

«That's unreasonable,» said Miles. «It’s _all_ unreasonable.»

«Do you think that no part of your father recognized you? You know how he felt about Peter Parker, but then he completely changed his tune for you.»

«Maybe,» said Miles, and it kind of made him perk up a little to think it, but also, his dad had been down there in the supercollider, and that had to have meant something to him, «but at least he actually got to interact with me. You never got to do that. And I don’t know how you think I’ve changed. I’m pretty sure I'm still myself.»

«No?» asked his mom. «Your confidence used to be a lot more shallow, I think. Since you became Spider-Man, I think you’ve been more fully yourself.»

«You think so?» asked Miles.

«You don’t?» asked his mom.

Miles shrugged.

«I thought it was just the new school. I thought you’d found somewhere you could be your best self. I shouldn’t have assumed, though.»

«That’s still nonsensical!» said Miles. «Literally, you couldn’t have known.»

«We’ll have to agree to disagree," said his mom.

Miles felt miserable. «I don’t want you to feel guilty because of what I did.»

«Did you forget that your father and I are still responsible for you?»

«Not that kind of responsible,» said Miles.

«Yes, that kind of responsible,» said his mom.

Miles growled. Then he stopped growling because growling hurt.

«Is this a return of monster-Miles?»

«Mom!» Miles complained. ‘Monster-Miles’ was what he’d called himself when he was having a snit when he was little. His mom always liked to bring up embarrassing things from when he was little. «You know I'm not a little kid, anymore. I’ve made my own decisions.»

«You’re thirteen,» said his mom. «You have a few more years yet until you get to make the big decisions.»

Miles huffed. Maybe they _were_ going to have to agree to disagree for the moment.

«I’m sorry my decisions hurt you,» he said.

«All I want is for you to be safe, my son.»

«I know," he said. The problem was, that’s what he wanted for his family, too. So far, those had been mutually exclusive goals.

«Tell me about how your anti-bullying day was at school,» said his mom.

«Way too long,» said Miles. He knew his mom was trying to change the subject from anything to do with Spider-Man, but he couldn't help but think about how things could have been so much different if he’d been able to respond to his spider-sense hours earlier.

«Did you learn anything?» his mom asked him.

«Uhhh, don't be a dick?»

«I hope they said more than that,» said his mom.

«It was a bunch of iterations of: here’s something people get made fun of for, and here’s why it's not cool to make fun of it. And then, hey, let's break up into groups to talk about how we’ve been impacted by bullying.»

«Did you get anything out of it?»

«Hey, the only people I bully are criminals, and no one said anything about being nice to them.»

«I guess I was wondering if you'd had anything to share with your classmates,» said his mom.

Miles shifted uncomfortably. He was the biracial kid who started school at five hardly talking outside of the home and never above a whisper (except for when he was _really_ upset), who’d transitioned to being a seven-year-old with way too much energy who wouldn't shut up. It wasn’t really until he was about ten that he’d sort of found his groove. Sure, he'd had things he could have talked about. But he was at a new school with all new classmates who thought about him a certain kind of way, and he didn't want to show them what he’d had to overcome. He'd somehow managed to recover from the whole ‘gluing’ his hand to Gwen’s hair incident, and he was generally thought of as a reasonably cool guy. Why bring up the past (even if it didn’t feel very heroic to hide it)?

«I mean, I’ve just met these guys, and you need to be a level-seven friend at least before you learn my tragic backstory,» said Miles.

«Well, maybe I should get your teachers together for their own anti-bullying group session,» said his mom.

In grades one, two, and five, she and his dad had really gone to bat for him against some really awful teachers. Grade two, Ms. Tanick had let his classmates vote to put duct tape over his mouth for a whole afternoon.

«I don't know,» said Miles, «I think they might not have appreciated me saying that all the worst bullies I knew were teachers.»

«Are you having any trouble with your teachers?»

«Nah, things have been really good at Visions,» said Miles. He had a history teacher that was a bit of a grouch and a hardass, but he was an equal opportunity grouch, so Miles never took it personally.

«Any trouble with the students?» asked his mom.

«It’s honestly a pretty chill school,» he said, a little worried that his mom actually was looking for an excuse (or just a silver lining) to pull him out, but also telling the truth. «Honestly, some kids actually did open up in the groups, and everyone was like, respectful, for the most part?» He couldn't imagine that happening at his old school.

Not that his old school sucked, or there weren’t lots of cool people there. There were just also a bunch of people there that were actively looking to make other people miserable, which was (mostly) absent at Visions.

He considered that serious anti-bullying programs, low student-to-teacher ratios, and a good handful of teachers who gave a damn actually did some good. Miles had had good teachers before, but they’d seemed few and far between. Kindergarten teacher? A sweetheart. Third-grade teacher? A lifesaver. Sixth grade STEM teacher? She’d made science sound fun for the first time Miles could remember.

«Have you been happy there?» his mom asked him.

«Yeah," said Miles. It still surprised him how well he’d settled into the school.

«What do you like so much about it?» asked his mom.

Miles shrugged. «I guess…you can relax there. It’s like, no one's looking for an excuse to be awful to you, so you can actually sort of be yourself.»

Yeah, he was confident as Spider-Man because he had spider-powers, but he was confident as Miles because, after a couple of months at his new school, he’d realized that he didn't have to be so careful about putting his best foot forward at all times. He didn’t want to say that he was his ‘real’ self now because he’d hardly been anything fake before. But he used to curate his real self, so no one would suddenly remember quiet-Miles, or loud-Miles, or tantrum-Miles, or decide that there was something new wrong with him to give him a new antecedent to his name. At Visions, sure, if you did something embarrassing, or said something kind of stupid (and there had been plenty of that in the days surrounding his getting his powers), someone would make a joke out of it, but he just hadn't really seen it get nasty there.

«Plus,» he said, wanting more to say in favor of it, in case his parents _were_ thinking of pulling him out, «there’s a lot of good teachers, and I’ll totally qualify for the scholarships when I graduate. And, their digital media class is super well funded.»

«Making any other friends?» asked his mom.

Miles almost brought up Gwen, but he hardly wanted to bring the conversation back to Spider-Man. «You know me, I’m Mr. Popular,» he said instead.

«How have you been acclimating to the dorm life?» asked his mom.

«Pretty good,» Miles said uncomfortably. «It's so much easier getting group projects done, or group studying.»

«I suppose it is very…convenient,» said his mom.

Miles cringed. His parents were _so_ considering pulling him out.

«I think everything about the school’s convenient. They just got all these great teachers all together, and great facilities, and motivated students. Plus automatic scholarships for 3.0 GPA at graduation. The school’s great on a college application, too.» He was basically regurgitating all the things his parents had been telling him when they made him go in the first place.

Instead of saying anything, his mom just squeezed his forearm and let the conversation die.

Miles was used to feeling better after talking things out with his mom, but at the moment, he only felt worse. He suspected because they hadn't actually talked anything out, as was becoming the pattern.

«Can I have my laptop?» he asked. «I’ve got an essay to write.»

His mom had brought him his computer and his textbooks, and Miles had a whole bunch of work to catch up on.

«Can you type with your fingers bandaged up?» asked his mom.

«I might be able to hunt and peck,» said Miles, frustrated at one more thing he couldn’t do. He used to be able to type decently fast, without much having to think about it. Now he _might_ be able to hunt and peck.

«How about I help,» said his mom. «I’m a pretty good typist, myself.»

«That could help,» said Miles.

«What’s the essay about?» asked his mom.

“Lord of the Flies,” said Miles, using the English title.

“Oh, that's a bleak one,” said his mom, perhaps switching to English herself to be in the right mindset for an English assignment.

“They’re all bleak ones,” said Miles. “The scarlet letter, the Outsiders, the Awakening, the Metamorphosis, Great Expectations. Then they complain about kids being depressed.”

“You'll have to propose your own reading list, then," said his mom.

“Seriously, I hated the Awakening,” said Miles.

“Lord of the Flies kind of starts out fun, don't you think?” asked his mom.

“Sure,” said Miles. “A bunch of kids on a tropical island, no grownups, swimming all day. I’d love reading a story about them working together to get rescued, or like, they turn the plane wreckage into a boat, and sail home, or something.”

“Is that what you’re going to write about?" asked his mom.

“Maybe I should,” said Miles.

“What do you think your teacher wants you to write about?”

“Oh, ooh-woo, Simon’s a Jesus figure, and he dies for the sinful boys, who all get rescued in spite of being awful. Mankind is full of sin. Something about faith in higher powers.”

“How many essays have they probably read like that?” asked his mom.

“Well, that's a good point,” said Miles.

“So what do _you_ want to write about?" asked his mom.

“I don't know," said Miles. "Something about how it’s a post-war novel, and that makes the author see everything the worst way possible? And like, maybe it would be more subversive to acknowledge the dark parts of humanity, but still have the characters dig down and find the best parts of themselves, and build a society together. Like, the opposite of Lord of the Flies. They all start as these disparate kids fighting and failing to get by, and they have to struggle to unite and thrive.”

"Alright, then how do you write an essay about that?”

“Good question,” said Miles.

!!!!!

Miles and Rio were busy talking literature when Jefferson got back from the courtesy office. He’d finally finished his after-action report yesterday evening, and it had taken a while on the phone with the Captain just now, reviewing it for approval.

He wasn’t finished with all the rest of his work though, of course, so the moment he was sat down he had pulled out his laptop and opened his call log to make note of the voicemails he’d accumulated. A couple from his sergeants, with questions about the work he'd left in their lap when he’d taken this ‘protective detail.’ One from a whole different DCS social worker with questions about a DUI arrest he'd made, where there’d been a child in the car. One from an Assistant City Attorney regarding that same case as well as a domestic violence arrest he'd made. There was also a voicemail from Miles’s school a couple of days ago.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Davis, this is vice-principal Hawkins at Visions Academy. We’re all wishing Miles a speedy recovery, here. Again, if Miles can think of any possible vectors where he may have contracted Mono, we would appreciate knowing, just in case it was from the school. But also, in the spirit of that speedy recovery, we’re hoping to hear back from you about when we might be able to have a meeting with the family to discuss Miles’s back-to-school plan. It’s best to have this meeting as soon as possible so that there's as little disruption to his education as possible.”

Jefferson sighed as he made a note of the VP’s phone number. They still didn't even know when Miles might be out of the hospital, so he didn’t know what to tell the school. Well, Rio had probably put them off when she went and got Miles’s things. But they’d need to address the issue sooner or later.

“-but he liked it when I used that in my Great Expectations essay, so I don’t know if I should use it again, or do something different.” Miles’s voice pierced through Jefferson's musings and made a connection between two previously disparate pieces of information.

“‘No expectations,’” he said, making Miles look up. “Was that yours?”

“Oh! You saw that? Um, I mean, I don't know what you're talking about?”

Jefferson rolled his eyes. “Yeah, Miles, we were all over those tunnels.”

“What’s ‘no expectations?’” asked Rio.

“It's a mural we found in the access tunnels around Fisk’s collider. I’m such an idiot, I thought it looked like your art when I saw it. I don’t know how I didn’t think more on that.”

“Sorry," said Miles, giving up on denying it was his.

Jefferson couldn't find it in him to be annoyed about it, not when Miles's voice was so expressive right now, without the pain that had layered it constantly since he had woken up. The new pain medication protocol he was on was working well, for all that the drug cocktail made Jefferson nervous.

“I thought it was really good,” said Jefferson. “I got a picture of it, though it got covered in all the dust from the explosion.”

“Oh,” said Miles. "I got a picture of it when it was new. I wonder if it’ll clean up okay.”

Jefferson shook his head. “That whole section of the underground is being renovated. That wall’s not long for this world.”

“Aw,” said Miles. “But you really thought it was good?”

“Good enough I wished it was put up somewhere legal,” said Jefferson.

“Yeah, you’d probably make me scrub it off if it wasn't getting torn down,” said Miles ruefully.

“May well have,” said Jefferson, if privately he thought that it was a shame the work was going to be destroyed. “You’ll have to share that picture with me and your mom.”

“Oh, sure,” said Miles.

“So that's what you were doing when you were bit, huh?” asked Jefferson.

“Yeah,” said Miles. “How much did May Parker tell you, anyway?”

“A good bit,” said Jefferson, who still didn't like thinking too much on everything May Parker and Ganke had told him about Spider-Man. Still, he said, “She seemed to think that your getting powers was the work of some sort of higher power.” He let doubt color his voice.

“Oh yeah,” said Miles, "or like, fate, or something like that.”

He said it casually, with none of the weight that Ganke or May Parker had ascribed it. Jefferson wondered if the full implications had hit him, the same as it had the other two.

“Is that something you believe?” asked Jefferson.

“Well, sure,” said Miles. “I literally got bit the day before we lost Peter Parker. Sort of makes you think.”

“That’s awful,” said Rio. “If there's some being pulling the strings, then why not just save Peter Parker instead?”

“Maybe I _was_ supposed to," Miles said, a little of the wind taken from his sails.

“No you were not,” Jefferson said, a little more harshly than he had intended.

Miles wilted. “Or maybe whatever gave us powers can only interfere by loosing radioactive spiders to bite a random person. I don't know.”

“You think it was random?” asked Jefferson.

“Sure,” said Miles. “I think anyone could be Spider-Man. I’m just the guy that got bit. Like, it could have been a maintenance worker down there, instead, that got bit.”

That was a starkly different take on the matter than May Parker’s, and, Jefferson found, different from his own. Given a scenario where he believed that a higher power had given his son superpowers and engineered Aaron's death as part of his origin story. But Jefferson couldn't credit Miles as a _random_ choice. Because Miles as Spider-Man had been incredible, and Jefferson didn't believe that just anyone could pull that off. Because the more Jefferson thought back on the spider kid, the more he saw Miles's personality, Miles’s strengths, Miles's heart. It wasn't just the powers that made a Spider-Man.

“By the way, May Parker said the spider that bit you was from another universe _and_ the future? How did you figure _that_ out?”

“Oh, because it was glitching, and it was before the collider was turned on and all the people with spider-powered DNA got pulled through. Spider-Woman had gotten pulled a bit into the past too.”

“Glitching?” asked Rio.

“Yeah, well, it's not good for you to be in the wrong universe. The fabric of space-time keeps trying to reject you; sort of tear apart your molecules. So all the spider people that came through were glitching every now and then as the universe basically tried to erase them. That’s why I had to be there in the fight. Someone needed to destroy the machine after they all went through. Otherwise, one of them would have had to stay behind and die. Peter _B._ Parker was going to do it, because he didn’t think I was ready, and I _wasn’t_ ready when he decided that, but then you gave me my pep talk, and I took my leap of faith, and I was able to get them all home.”

“So…you saw the spider glitch,” said Jefferson, not wanting to unpack all of that.

“Yeah,” said Miles. “Not when it first bit me, but when I went back to look for it, because I was kind of in denial about the whole, having spider-powers thing. I figured I’d go find the spider where I left it after I smooshed it, and it would just be a regular spider, and I wouldn't have spider-powers. But it was very much not a normal spider. And it glitched. And then I heard a commotion, and there was Spider-Man fighting the green goblin.”

“And you decided to stick around?" asked Rio.

“No!” said Miles, almost sounding scandalized. “I mean, at first it was like, oh, this is awesome, but then it was clear that things were a little too wild, so I was going to get out of there, but that was when this big beam got slammed right into me, and I latched onto it on accident, and I got dragged out into the fight, and I almost fell to my death. Or, actually, I think I could have survived the fall with my spider-powers, but Spider-Man caught me anyway.”

“You were hit by a beam?” asked Rio.

“Yeah, but, not like an I-beam, more like one of those triangle frame beams for riggings.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

“Sure,” said Miles, “it’s way less dense.”

“We’d rather you not get hit with any beams, Miles,” said Jefferson.

“So would I!”

“Well good," said Rio, and there was humor in her voice. “See, we have some common grounds.”

Jefferson laughed.

“What’s so funny?" asked Miles.

“Just that our conversations have gotten kind of surreal after finding out you're Spider-Man.”

“Uhhh, I seem to remember us having some pretty surreal conversations about everything you saw at the collider.”

“Yeah, I guess you're the common denominator there," said Jefferson.

“Hey, King Pin was the source of all the crazy, I’m just a side effect,” said Miles.

Was it crazy that Jefferson felt a flash of annoyance that Miles described himself that way? Just a side effect, like he hasn't been so much more? But none of this what Jefferson wanted for Miles.

Their conversation was derailed by a notice from Jefferson’s radio. The social worker was back. Miles’s things were tucked away, and bandages were put back on his face before she was allowed through security.

“Hello again. It's Miss Ashley. I said I'd come back and see you today, so here I am.”

The woman was wearing a surgical gown, gloves, radiation glasses, and a lead apron, over whatever she'd worn to the hospital. The gloves and gown were unnecessary at this point, as Miles wasn't aspirating out an appreciable amount of radioactive particulates anymore, but Jefferson didn't doubt that it made her feel safer.

“Hi," said Miles, shifting a bit.

“How are you doing? Feeling any better, today?"

This time, she took a seat next to Miles, and pulled out a laptop, which she was quick to open.

“Um, sure, I guess,” said Miles.

“Good," she said. “I know you were really tired yesterday, so we didn't talk very much. But usually, when I talk to kids, I have a whole lot of questions that I ask them, so I can get to know them better, and so I can make sure they're okay.”

“Oh, well, I'm still okay, I guess,” said Miles.

“Good, and we'll need a little bit more privacy for our conversation," she said. "Nurse Morales, if we could have the room please?”

Social workers were used to having some of their confidential interviews with police present, not so much with any other third parties.

“Of course," said Rio. "I'll just be outside, chico. You use that call button if you need anything, though.”

She couldn't have been happy to have been asked to leave. Not that the social worker wouldn't have asked both of them to leave if she’d known they were Miles’s parents, because talking to witnesses 101 was you talk to them alone whenever possible. But then again, Jefferson wasn’t sure that either of them _would_ let their son be interviewed alone by a social worker, barring a warrant, in normal circumstances.

“Well, how about you tell me a bit about yourself?” asked the social worker.

“Um,” said Miles. “I mean, I’m Spider-Man, so I guess my hobbies are web-slinging and saving the city.”

The dry look that Jefferson shot Miles's way was completely wasted on him.

“What are you doing when you’re not Spider-Man?”

“Um, I guess school, hanging out with my family, hanging out with my friends.”

“Any non-crime-fighting hobbies?”

“Art, I guess, but I won’t say what kind, since I don’t want you to actually know too much about me.”

“Why is that?”

“Um, well, it’s hard to have a secret identity when you blab all about yourself,” said Miles.

“Do you understand that…there’s a good chance that you won’t be able to keep your secret identity? Or that you might not be able to leave and go home the way you’re hoping to? If that happens, the court is going to be in a position to be making a lot of decisions about your life. They won’t be able to make good decisions for you if they don’t know anything about you.”

“I guess I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it,” said Miles.

“Well, I hope you’ll answer as many questions as you can feel comfortable with.”

Miles deflected a lot for anything personal. Of course, he wouldn’t say who he lived with, or what school he went to. Neither would he answer what grade he was in, or what his family composition was at home, or if Jefferson and Rio were together or not. He did tell her he felt safe talking to both of his parents when he had trouble, but admitted that he hadn’t told them anything about Spider-Man.

“And do you suppose they’ve figured out that you are, now?”

“I don’t know,” said Miles. “I guess either they have, or they think I’m missing.”

“Would you like to reassure them?”

“If I could,” said Miles. “But I can’t. Not until I get out of here, and I can do it in person.”

Jefferson had sat through a few DCS interviews before, and he couldn’t say this was really like any of those. He doubted anyone could say they’d had a child welfare investigation run quite like this one. But then, they usually knew _who_ they were talking to when they investigated abuse and neglect.

Miles answered those abuse and neglect screening questions fairly straightforwardly. He always had enough food, clean clothes, and everything he needed for school. He went to the doctor and dentist regularly. No one hurt each other in his house. No one hurt him when he was in trouble. No one had touched him on his private parts or asked him to touch theirs.

“Except for the stuff that’s happened here at the hospital,” he groused.

"Has any of that touching been for anything other than a medical necessity?”

Miles’s face shifted under his bandages, and Jefferson could only imagine the pinched look on his face showing he regretted even mentioning it.

“No, nothing like that,” he said.

“Alright then,” she said. “In that case, can we shift back to some Spider-Man questions?”

“Can’t promise I’ll answer them,” said Miles.

“Well, okay, but I wanted to ask, you said that your parents don’t know, or didn’t know, at least, that you’re Spider-Man. How is it that you were able to keep that a secret?”

That was a really good question.

“Um,” said Miles. “Well, they both work a lot. You know, to put food on the table, and clothes on my back, and a computer in my backpack for school. And there’s more to it than that, but I’m not going to say. Just that they never had any reason to think anything was wrong because I was really good at tricking them.”

To his credit, he managed to sound pretty guilty to say it.

“What do you think they would have done if they had known?”

“Grounded me, I guess?” said Miles, clearly uncomfortable. “Make it so I couldn’t hide it anymore. I don’t know, really. But they wouldn’t have let me. They’re definitely against anything that puts me in danger. They definitely had every reason to think I was safe and sound, even when I wasn’t.”

Why did Jefferson feel like Miles was talking more to him than to the social worker?

She asked some more questions around the subject. Miles deflected. Probably neither of them was happy.

“And, since we’re kind of assuming you’re a teenager, I actually have some extra questions for you.”

“Uhhh, what if I said I was eleven?”

“I think I’d still ask them,” said the social worker.

“Hmph.”

“Have you started dating at all?”

“Uhh, no,” said Miles, clearly a little abashed.

“Is there an adult in your life that you feel like you can talk to, or have talked to, about your reproductive health.”

“I guess my dad,” said Miles, clearly more abashed.

“Have you ever been in any formal trouble for your school attendance?”

“No? Wait, that’s a question I shouldn’t answer anyway.”

“Any trouble with law enforcement?”

“I mean, I guess I’m kind of a vigilante,” said Miles.

Kind of?

"How about when you’re not Spider-Man, any legal trouble there?”

“No comment,” said Miles.

He hadn’t; not unless you counted a completely unnecessary visit with the school resource officer after a heated argument Miles had had with his fifth-grade teacher.

“Have you ever felt like hurting yourself at all?”

“What? No,” said Miles.

“Alright, and I also need to ask if you’ve ever felt like killing yourself.”

“Huh uh, no,” said Miles.

“Do you have feelings of wanting to hurt anyone else?”

“I mean, not outside of like, crime-fighting,” said Miles.

“And, have any issues related to your gender identity or sexual orientation had an impact on your life, or been a stressor in your home?” she asked, which was a very roundabout way for her to ask if he was LGBT without directly asking a kid to out themself, and Jefferson figured she definitely wouldn’t have asked it if she’d known Miles’s father was in the room with them.

“No,” said Miles.

With the teenager questions over, she started asking him questions she probably usually just asked the parents in the first place. Questions like if he had any allergies or medical conditions. Any educational needs. Miles refused to answer any of them.

“Alright, well those were all the questions that I had for you,” she eventually said. “Is there anything that I didn’t ask about that you think I should know?”

“Just that my parents are awesome?” said Miles.

“I’m sure. Any questions for me?”

“Yeah, when’s my lawyer coming by?”

“Oh, I imagine they’ll call you tomorrow morning.”

“Isn’t the hearing tomorrow morning?”

“Yes, they probably haven’t even been assigned to your case yet. You’ll probably be assigned to them first thing in the morning, and they’ll give you a call after they read my detention report.”

“Detention? You sure I’m not in trouble with you guys?”

“I’m sure. That’s just what we call it when we bring a child under the custody of the court for protective purposes.”

“Hm,” said Miles. “You really can just send me home, you know?”

“We like it when kids go home,” she told him. “We just need to be sure it’s safe.”

“And you can’t take my word for it?”

“Well, from what you’ve told me, you’ve been keeping a lot of secrets, maybe lying to your parents, so that you can do some really dangerous things behind their backs. I don’t want you to think that I’m judging you for that. You’ve made the choices you thought were right for yourself, and I know I don’t have the whole picture of why you made them. But it doesn’t leave me in a position to trust when you say that you’ll be safe.”

Miles huffed. “Safer than in some group home, or wherever you’d want to put me.”

“Well, if we were to send you to a foster home or a group home, it would not be as Spider-Man. Our court system is confidential. But, like I said, we like to be able to send kids home. If we could assess your home for safety, then that could be an option. If we can’t do that, then we’ll have to figure out a safe place for you to go to when you discharge.”

Miles didn’t have anything to say to that.

“We’ll see how things go tomorrow, and I’ll be in touch with you after the hearing, okay?”

“Okay,” said Miles.

Jefferson wanted some time after the social worker left to…maybe process with Miles the conversation he had just had with her. But Felix was hot on Rio’s heels, coming in for scheduled wound care, which Miles was used to, and a sponge bath, which Miles definitely wasn’t. He’d been unconscious the other time they'd given him one. The job was a little above Felix's pay-grade, but they weren't letting any orderlies past security.

“I feel a lot better right now; I think I could just take a shower?” said Miles when the subject was breached.

“You feel a lot better because you're high on opiates and muscle relaxants, mijo," said Rio. “You still haven't managed more than one step, and you’ll be in so much more pain when the medication wears off if you push yourself.”

“And you'll be handling as much of the actual washing as you're able to," said Felix. “I’m just here to help you with the parts you can't manage on your own. Like your back, and maybe your feet.”

Like a lot of aspects of being bedridden in the hospital, the process left Miles frustrated, uncomfortable, and embarrassed. When it was over, Miles decided he wanted the room to himself for a while, so Jefferson found himself out in the hallway where Rio had already been banished.

“I hate this so much,” he found himself saying. “I just want to take him home.”

“It’s hard being on this side of things," said Rio. “I've seen so many parents go through this, and I always thought, how could I possibly be strong enough? I keep wanting to just pull him into my lap and hold him, and I can’t.”

The hard part was also not knowing how quickly he’d recover, or how completely. Their plan was for him to ‘escape’ under his own power, but they didn't even know if that would be possible yet. Every time Miles was declared to be healing very well, Jefferson just kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, for his healing to shut off again for good. That Miles would be left in pain for the rest of his life, or half-blind, or unable to walk across a room without wheezing for breath.

Or would he heal perfectly, and just go out again to find something that would actually kill him next time?

All his life, Jefferson had struggled against feelings of helplessness. He’d brought lawful order into his life, the same way his brother had turned himself into a mercenary, all so he wouldn't have to feel like the world could take everything from him in an instant. And it worked, usually, up until it didn't. Up until his brother took a bullet to the chest. Up until Miles got bitten by a spider. Up until someone with too much money decided to break the laws of physics under Manhattan, or acquire a city wrecking amount of cesium-137.

“He’ll be okay,” said Jefferson. Because Miles _could_ overcome this, and the both of them needed to believe that. "He'll be home soon enough. Not sure he fits on your lap as well as he used to, though.”

Rio huffed. “I swear, that boy grew two inches overnight. Not that he'll ever be too big for his mamá…you don’t suppose he literally grew two inches overnight, do you?”

“I told you that uniform was big on him when we enrolled him.”

Miles had fallen back asleep by the time they made their way back into his room. He roused for a bit for dinner, but he didn’t last long into the evening. Between the medications and his body struggling to heal itself while still being irradiated, he never had much energy to spare. Even the sponge bath had worn him out, if especially because he’d insisted on doing as much of it as he physically could.

The both of them caught up on paperwork on into the evening as Miles slept, still dutifully keeping to the edges of the room while they weren't directly tending to Miles. Already there'd been a decent decrease in how radioactive he still was, but it would be a couple of weeks before most of the cesium was flushed from his system, even with the Prussian blue dye they were still giving him to help it along. 

Jefferson had plenty of reports due related to his normal patrol activities, not related to city ending incidents, and he did work on those. He also worked on a Spider-Man witness statement. Miles might not be able to testify in court without sacrificing his secret identity, but the things he had been saying about the collider incident and Aaron's death could still become part of the official record, and potentially lead to further evidence admissible in court.

As it got late, Jefferson considered going home for the night like he and Rio had decided. They’d thought that one of them should go home every night to freshen up and take care of things. He looked over at Rio. She'd already fallen asleep on the couch, which made up Jefferson's mind not to go. He didn't want to leave without telling her, and he didn’t want to leave at all. Frankly, if things ever got back to ‘normal’ he didn't know how he was going to handle going to work and sending Miles to school, because he didn’t want to let his eyes off his son.

So, the chair he was in wasn't particularly comfortable, but he was able to prop his legs up on a side table and recline, and frankly, he’d slept in worse positions.

It didn’t make for a very deep sleep, though.

“Wuss’at?”

That was Miles’s groggy voice.

“Shhh, just some medicine. Go on back to sleep.”

The smooth susurrus was one Jefferson didn't recognize.

Jefferson opened his eyes in time to see Miles yank his PICC line away from a nurse Jefferson didn't recognize.

“What’s going on?” he asked, putting his hands on the armrests to push himself up.

The nurse spun around towards him, his hands going to his waistband. The moment Jefferson saw his piece, he knew what was going to happen. Jefferson’s hands were still pushing himself up. By the time Jefferson could reach for his own pistol, the definitely-not-a-nurse would have already shot him.

With Jefferson down, the gun would turn on Miles, who was as far from fighting fit as he'd ever been. Lastly, the gun would turn on Rio, a witness the assassin couldn't afford. After her, he’d make a run for it, turning his gun on anyone who got in his way. Jefferson couldn't see a way out, even as he pushed his body to move faster, to reach his own piece. A man can still fight with bullets in him, and he was going to fight till he dropped.

It was as the gun was leaving the assassin’s waistband, and Jefferson was trying to divert his motion from standing up to taking a knee, freeing his hands, that everything changed. Before either man realized what was happening, an enormous wooden mallet swung blindingly fast through the air and slammed the assassin into the wall behind Miles’s bed.

Jefferson crashed painfully onto his knee, gaping only for a moment at what had just happened before he rushed across the room to secure the assassin’s firearm.

«What’s going on?!» came Rio’s voice from behind him as he snatched up the weapon.

“SSSHHHHH- It hurts, it hurts, oooohhhhhh, why's it hurt so much?” Miles cried.

“Mijo!”

“This is Lieutenant Davis,” Jefferson said into his radio as he pulled out his cuffs. “Security breach in Spider-Man's hospital room. Suspect is down, in need of medical attention.”

However down the man was, Jefferson still put cuffs on him and frisked him. There wasn't much to find: a fancy concealed carry holster tucked under his pants, an impractically large pocket knife, and a hospital ID badge that both looked brand new, and also had a circular hole punch, instead of the obround cut he was used to seeing on Rio’s. It was hard to tell if the face on the badge matched the man’s, even after pulling the surgical mask away because Miles had kind of broken his face. However, looking at the picture, Jefferson had the uncomfortable feeling that he’d seen this man before. He just couldn't place him.

“I hate everything, why’s everything hurt?”

“Your body's not ready to move like that, Miles," said Rio, “just focus on breathing.”

Rio wanted Miles to breathe. Jefferson wanted him to explain exactly where the giant, and decidedly funky looking, wooden mallet had come from.

Another question pushed its way to the forefront of his mind.

"Did he get anything into your PICC line?" he asked urgently.

“What about your PICC line?” Rio was quick to ask Miles.

“Nothing," Miles pushed the word out through the pain he was in. "I didn't let him.”

“Alright, Rio, cover his face. I’ve got back-up coming.”

“Right,” said Rio.

It was a good thing that they had things set to easily cover Miles’s face in a hurry because it was only a few seconds later that a voice came from the doorway.

“Lieutenant Davis?”

Jefferson turned to the uniformed officer in the doorway. “Attempted assassination," he said. “Perp definitely needs medical attention. And who are you, exactly?”

“Officer Jennifer Sly,” she said, “with the twenty-sixth precinct. I was in the ICU on another call. The officers at the doors were asleep when I reached them, difficult to rouse.”

Damn.

“Flag a nurse or doctor, will you? This bastard needs a trauma team, and our guys need drug tests and observation. Then stick around; you've just joined the protection detail for the night.”

“Is he okay?” asked Miles.

“He’ll be fine, Spider-Man,” said Jefferson, using the title to remind Miles that this new officer was not in-the-know. He was not entirely confident of his assessment of the assassin's well-being, but the man had a pulse, which was more than could have been said had Jefferson reached his sidearm. He was glad that Miles wouldn’t have been able to properly see the man before he’d been blinded again; he didn’t need to

Things moved quickly from there, with hospital security rushing in ahead of a medical team with a gurney. The man hadn’t roused once since he’d collapsed on the ground, which wasn’t a good sign for the prospect of him coming out of this without brain damage. Jefferson couldn't bring himself to care.

Once a couple of beat cops had been brought up to guard the corridor, Officer Sly came back in to take Miles’s statement, because Jefferson taking it himself would be a breach too far in all of this. Miles was still shifting uncomfortably with renewed waves of pain as he spoke.

“It was my spider-sense that woke me up, I knew something was wrong, and I saw this guy. And, I know I can’t see well, but I knew he wasn't anyone on my medical team. He had a syringe, and he was trying to get at my IV.”

The syringe in question had already been recovered. It was completely empty; that is to say, empty of anything other than air with the plunger pulled all the way back. A PICC line, going all the way to the heart, would be the perfect way to introduce an air embolism that would have killed Miles, while potentially looking like a medical complication. With the protection detail seeming to have just fallen asleep outside, the would-be assassin may well have gotten away with it without any criminal investigation. He would have, if Miles hadn't woken up.

Jefferson resolved never to question his son’s spider-sense.

“I was like, ‘who are you,’ and…and Officer Davis was like, 'stop right there,’ and this guy was pulling a gun, and he was going to shoot Officer Davis, and I'm kind of bedridden, and I don't have my web-shooters, so I hit him with the mallet.”

“And um, where exactly did this mallet come from?" asked Officer Sly, which, thank you, finally they’d get an answer to that.

“Oh, it fits in my pocket,” said Miles, clarifying nothing.

“Excuse me?” asked Officer Sly.

“What pocket?” asked Jefferson. Miles was in a hospital gown and had no pockets to his name.

“It…here, it fits in my pocket,” said Miles, casually lifting the massive thing by its handle. He shoved it towards his hip, where it seemed to compress down, and disappear into nothing.

“What?” asked Jefferson, blinking his eyes.

“I’m so glad I’ve got my body-worn camera," said Officer Sly, who was probably despairing of writing this into her report.

“Spider-Ham gave it to me. It’s from his weird universe, so it doesn't really follow the laws of physics.”

“What?” asked Officer Sly.

“I thought you said that everything from another universe was getting torn apart from being in our universe.”

“Right,” said Miles, “so I'm not sure. Spider Ham's universe has really weird physics, (that sort of break my brain to think about too much), so it might be something to do with that. But I think also that maybe keeping it in its pocket keeps it from being properly ‘in’ this universe, so it'll stick around as long as I don’t leave it out too long. I’ve hardly had it out at all, so I’ve never had a chance to see if it glitches or not.”

“Spider _Ham_?" asked Officer Sly.

“I really don't want to break your brain, so the less I say about him, the better. But he was one of the spider people who got sucked into our universe by King Pin’s collider.”

“…Right.”

Jefferson sympathized with the woman one hundred percent.

Jefferson gave his own statement, and so did Rio. Officer Sly wound up posted in the hallway on guard duty afterward. Jefferson loaned her his work laptop so she could log into her own account and get her report in, preventing her from needing to go all the way to her squad car for her own, and leaving them with only hospital security in place.

Howie and Officer Biggs showed up around five in the morning to take over the protection detail. Officer Sly had already been working overtime when the incident occurred and was clocking in six hours over by the time she was finally relieved.

“We have any idea who this guy is?” asked Howie.

“Nah,” said Jefferson, thinking back to the familiar-looking picture on the ID badge. He still can't place it. “He's in bad shape though, with a traumatic brain injury and a shattered shoulder.”

“Well, hopefully he recovers _just_ enough to turn state’s evidence," said Officer Biggs.

“I don’t know,” said Howie, “he'd have to roll pretty far for a deal, with how much the whole city is going to hate his guts when the headlines start pouring in today, with how much the city loves the kid right now.”

“Not everyone loves him,” said Jefferson. They didn't even know if this was related to the bombing. It could have been someone tied to Fisk, or to the Triad. Or anyone, really, who wanted to operate in New York without having to worry about Spider-Man.

Jefferson did hope that the man would roll. Whether the man was with the nazis or organized crime, he wanted everyone involved in what happened last night behind bars. At the very least, it would help him sleep a little better at night.


	3. An Abundance of Inflammation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Healing's hard, even when it's your superpower. Being taken care of may be harder.

“Initial Detention Hearing is brought to order. The Honorable Judge Claudia Porter is presiding. Case is that of the unidentified child John Doe, also known as Spider-Man.”

“Good morning, everyone. If the representing parties could state their names for the record?”

“Evelyn Friedman, representing the Department, your honor. Children’s Social Worker Ashley Duong is present and can attest to the Detention Report.”

“Mark Temple, Attorney ad Litem for the minor, your honor. My client is present by teleconference.”

“I would like a verbal confirmation from the child that he is present,” said Judge Porter.

“Um, I’m here,” said Miles into the phone.

“Have the parties had the opportunity to review the Detention Report in full?” asked Judge Porter.

“I have, your honor,” said the lawyer for the county.

“I have, your honor,” said Miles’s attorney. “However, my client has not had that opportunity. His vision is impaired by full facial bandaging, and arrangements have not been made for him to review the report via screen-reader.”

“Is the child thirteen years of age or older?” asked Judge Porter.

“I don’t know, your honor, but I believe he is likely to be,” said Miles’s attorney.

“How about you, young Mr. Doe? Would you tell the court how old you are?”

“Um, no comment,” said Miles, already not feeling like this was going well.

“Mr. Temple, have you had the opportunity this morning to explain the salient points of the report to your client?”

“I have, your honor.”

“In that case, I have no reason to rule that the proceedings need to be delayed in order that the child have time to review the report. Ms. Friedman, what is the position of the Department?”

“The Department is asking that the court make a prima facia finding on the Detention Report, and detain the child at the hospital where he is currently receiving treatment. The agency’s efforts to identify the child and his parents have not born fruit, the parents have not come forward to claim him, and he is without a parent or guardian at this time. The Department also has strong concerns about the parent or guardian’s ability to supervise the child in a way that ensures he remains safe.”

His attorney had already told Miles that ‘prima facia’ meant ‘on the face of it,’ and that was the standard of evidence they used for this preliminary hearing. It was basically the complete opposite of ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’, and it meant that the judge basically took the facts in the report at face value to make her ruling. Miles thought that was pretty unfair, but he didn’t suppose he was in a position to argue the law.

“Mr. Temple?”

“While I do share the Department’s concerns that the child’s parents are not present, and _may_ be unable to supervise the child, I have strong concerns about the safety of my client should he become a ward of the state. The Department has not addressed how they intend to ensure his anonymity, how they will keep him from AWOLing and placing himself in further danger, nor how they will see that he is protected from assassination.”

“Is there a credible threat of assassination?” asked Judge Porter.

“In fact, there was an attempt on my client’s life just last night,” said Miles’s attorney. “I have already confirmed with Officer Jefferson Davis, who is leading my client’s protection detail, that an armed individual nearly killed my client last night.”

“Was the Department aware of this?” asked Judge Porter.

...

“No, your honor. The social worker has not had contact with the child this morning, and has been at court all morning. She may well have a voicemail to this effect waiting for her, but no. The news had not reached us.”

“Young Mr. Doe, is Officer Davis nearby to give comment?”

“Oh,” said Miles. The phone was already on speaker phone for his parents to listen in. “Just a sec. _Officer Davis, the judge wants to ask you about last night.”_

His dad shook his head a little and spoke up. “This is Officer Davis. Regarding last night, an individual did reach Spider-Man’s hospital room. He was armed, though it appeared that his intention was to introduce an air embolism to the child’s PICC line. He was able to bypass both the hospital’s and the PDNY’s security measures, incapacitating two of our officers to do so.”

“Does the PDNY know on whose behalf the assailant was acting?”

“No, your honor. Spider-Man hit the assailant in self defense, and the man’s unconscious in intensive care. While we have been able to identify him, he’s not been able to make any statement as to who he is associated with, and PDNY is not ready to release speculative information on the matter. We have compiled a pretty long list of people who could want Spider-Man dead, however, including multiple organized crime rackets.”

“Thank you, Officer Davis,” said Judge Porter. “Does the Department have a response to Mr. Temple’s concerns?”

“Your honor, the Department recognizes the high level challenges in meeting the care needs of a child such as this John Doe. The Department is willing to work with the District Attorney’s office, should a Witness Protection deal be created. Furthermore, the Department is experienced in managing the confidentiality of high profile cases. In absence of a Witness Protection deal, the Department is looking at utilizing the Interstate Compact to secure confidential placement in a neighboring state.”

“Does the Department anticipate finding a foster home that will agree to house a child that has bounties on his head?” asked his attorney. “And could the Department justify placing my client in a foster home that houses other dependent children? Is there any secure facility that the Department contracts with that can prevent Spider-Man from AWOLing.”

“Before I hear from the Department, I’d like to hear from you, Mr. Temple. Do you have a suggestion in lieu of a hospital hold?”

“My suggestion is entirely unorthodox, but I believe represents the best interests of the child in this extreme situation. I would suggest that instead of detaining my client with a hospital hold, that the Court detain him in the home of the parents.”

This was also terminology his attorney had explained to him. Basically, that the court could claim jurisdiction over him, but still let him live at home.

“This court has never detained a child in the home of parents it has not identified,” said Judge Porter.

“I’m certain,” said Miles’s attorney. “But the fact remains that the prospect of finding suitable placement for my client would be nearly impossible. Can the Department justify having the child discharged instead to their intake facility to await a placement that will never come, placing all of the children there at risk? By detaining in the home of the parents, the Court can maintain jurisdiction while minimizing the possibility of my client being publicly identified and thus endangered. The court could take further steps to protect his anonymity by making orders that the Department is to continue with Ms. Duong and her supervisor through the life of the case, in lieu of transferring to the court intervention and then continuing services workers. The court could also make orders for the Department to not share identifying information with law enforcement.”

“The Department and law enforcement are expected to have free exchange of information,” said Judge Porter.

“For the purpose of investigating child abuse,” said his attorney. “There are no abuse allegations on the original referral, nor the petition, nor in the detention report. Meanwhile, there has been at least one PDNY officer associated with the terror cell that orchestrated the attack. PDNY was unable to keep my client safe just last night. The best interests of the child preclude law enforcement being aware of his identity.”

To be honest, Miles hadn’t expected much from his attorney, not from the moment he’d understood that the man was supposed to advocate for his ‘best interest’ instead of his wishes. Especially not when the man had contacted him only a couple hours before the hearing. But he had to hand it to the guy for pulling this argument out of, apparently, no precedent. He didn’t know if it would work, but it actually seemed pretty ballsy.

“And how would you propose the Court exercise its jurisdiction if your client refuses to identify himself?”

“My client would be admonished that he is to alert his parents to the proceedings. The agency will also continue placing notifications in major New York publications asking the parents to step forward and identify themselves to the Agency. If they fail to do so, and my client is later identified while jurisdiction is in place, then the parents would be in contempt of court.”

“Your honor, with only ‘b’ and ‘g’ counts on the petition, jurisdiction could be in place for only six months should the child become whereabouts unknown.”

“Noted,” said Judge Porter. “Mr. Temple, do you anticipate your client’s parents or guardians to be able to keep the child safe? I believe you shared the Department’s concerns in that regard.”

“Of course, the fact remains that my client has spent the last three months acting as a vigilante, engaging in physical fights with criminals both mundane and extraordinary, and is currently hospitalized, and nearly died, due to intervening in a terrorist event. It is my client’s attestation that his parents have not previously known that he was Spider-Man. They both work long hours providing for him, and though he would not clarify, he reports that they had reason to believe that he was in safe care during the times he was engaging in vigilante activity. He believes that they will have realized now that he is Spider-Man, and will take new efforts to ensure he does not engage in dangerous or illegal activities.”

Which is something he still had not talked about with his parents.

“Does he have an explanation for why, if they have realized that he is Spider-Man, they have not come forward as his parents.”

“He believes that they are protecting his safety by maintaining his secret identity. He said, and I quote, ‘There is nothing that would keep them from my bedside and smothering me with attention otherwise.’”

“And how is the court to know that young Mr. Doe is typically in the care of parents or legal guardians? If you could comment yourself, young man?”

“Um,” said Miles, not sure how he was supposed to answer that. “I mean, I am. Um…like, you know Spider-Man’s always clean, right? My suit’s always washed, and in good repair. So, like, I got somewhere to go home to. And you never see me during school hours, so you know I’m in school every day. And like, I got a crazy high metabolism, so you know I’m eating regularly. So, yeah, I got people taking care of me.”

“The Court will take that into consideration. Ms. Friedman, has the Department identified a placement that can safely take the child.”

“The Department has not yet found such a placement.”

“And do we know how long the child’s doctors anticipate him being unable to AWOL under his own power.”

There was some murmuring that the microphone didn’t quite pick up.

“Your honor, I believe the social worker could address that question.”

“Ms. Duong?”

“Estimates by the child’s doctors are very tentative, your honor. If he continues healing at his current rate, it could be perhaps two more weeks. However, they initially saw evidence of much faster healing. If he begins healing at that rate again, he could be highly mobile within a few days.”

“In that case, I am going to continue this hearing until two days from now…the seventh of this week, in this same department. In that time, I would like the Department to create a comprehensive plan for the safe placement of the child.”

“Your honor, two days may not be enough time to secure such a plan,” said Ms. Friedman.

“If the Department cannot create a plan that addresses the safety of the child, then I fail to see how the court can justify taking jurisdiction,” said Judge Porter. “Moving on. The Court makes a prima facia finding on the facts of the petition, that the unidentified child John Doe is a child described by WIC 300 (b) and (g). The Department’s hospital hold will be continued until the next hearing. I have found that the Department has made reasonable efforts to identify and notify the parents of the Dependency hearing, and the Department is ordered to continue these efforts. The Department has made reasonable ICWA inquiry, but further inquiry is needed to make a ruling whether the child is or is not not an Indian child. Finally, further findings and orders will be made at the continued hearing.

“Young Mr. Doe?”

“Um, yes ma’am, um, your honor?” said Miles.

“I know that during these proceedings we have perhaps bemoaned the fact that you may be healing _too fast_ for our timelines, but I will say, the court is wishing you a speedy recovery. You are ordered to rest up and take care of yourself, alright?”

“Um, yes, your honor.”

“How are you doing there in the hospital?”

“Um, I’ve been better. One of the nurses here brought copies of her kid’s school work to keep me busy, which I have mixed feelings about.”

He heard some chuckles from the court room, which he thought had to be a good thing.

“Well, good,” said Judge Porter. “Maybe you’ll be able to give the Court a book report at the next hearing.”

“Um,” said Miles.

“With that, this hearing is adjourned. Thank you, everyone, for your participation today.”

Miles looked between his parents, who were sitting on either side of him. His vision was just a little bit better, he thought, but he couldn’t quite make out the expressions on their faces.

“Could have gone worse,” said his dad.

“I think it went pretty well, actually,” said his mom. “They weren’t going to just agree for him to go home on the first try.”

Miles still tended to think it didn’t matter much what the court ordered. As long as he maintained his secret identity, there wasn’t much they could do about him getting out of anywhere they tried to send him, (assuming he healed all the way; assuming they could keep up this ruse long enough for him to).

“Court’s over for the day. You said you’d give me an update,” said Miles.

His dad sighed. He’d taken a call about it earlier that morning while Miles was getting his first check-up of the day. When Miles had asked him for an update on what they knew about the assassin, his dad had said they’d wait to worry about it until after the hearing.

“They’ve got a hit on his finger prints,” said his dad.

“Oh, let me guess, he’s tied to a dozen unsolved murders,” said Miles.

“No,” said his dad. “He’s a cop. I guess the feds have already confirmed he was on their radar as maybe being one of the conspirators. This is, um, the second cop attached to the terror plot.”

Miles didn’t say anything to that. His lawyer had said something about PDNY involvement during the hearing, but he hadn’t had time to process it then.

“I don’t know what you’re feeling about that, but…I know I feel betrayed. They betrayed everything they were supposed to stand for.”

“Did you ever know them?” asked Miles.

“There’s one of them I’d met a few times,” said his dad. “The other, I think I’d just seen him in passing.”

Miles found himself shaking his left foot from side to side.

“Peter said not to go to the police when he told me how to stop the collider. Said Fisk had people everywhere. Guess it’s not just Fisk.”

“Yeah,” said his dad. “I guess so.”

“Mijo,” said his mom, clasping his hand, “what are you thinking?”

Miles shrugged. “Things were easier when the bad guys are skinheads and super-villains.”

“You’re right. Evil doesn’t always look like evil. But don’t you ever look so hard at the evil in the world that you forget to see the good in it as well.”

“’S’why we do what we do,” said Miles, his voice feeling thick with his anguish. “’S’about protecting the good things in the world, more’n about destroying things we don’t like.”

“That’s right, Miles,” said his dad.

He huffed. “How is the guy, anyway?” asked Miles. “I didn’t mean to hit him that hard. Just, everything happened so fast, and I wasn’t all the way awake yet. You said he’s in intensive care?”

“Yeah, um, he’s in bad shape. He’s in a coma, right now.”

“Oh,” said Miles. “Like…like a healing coma?”

“No, mijo, they didn’t induce the coma. He has a serious brain injury.”

“Oh,” said Miles.

It felt a little bit like there was a pressure building up inside of him.

“Is he going to be okay?”

“I don’t…” his mother started. She huffed a breath. “He probably won’t make a full recovery if he ever does wake up.”

“I really didn’t mean to hit him that hard,” he found himself saying.

Hadn’t he, though? He hadn’t even thought of holding back.

“Just, he was going to shoot you, dad, and I couldn’t reach him properly, so I just grabbed the mallet, and I didn’t mean to hit him that hard.”

“Hey, we know you didn’t mean to, Miles,” said his dad.

“But I still did,” said Miles.

“Mijo, no,” said his mom. “He attacked you in your bed. The only person at fault is him, and anyone who put him up to it.”

“That’s right,” said his dad. “Hey, it’s alright to feel regret that he’s hurt worse than he needed to be. But don’t you blame yourself. You did the best you could. He was trying to kill us, and you protected us.”

“He was trying to kill me! He wouldn’t have tried to kill you if I hadn’t woken you up. And…and Spider-Man’s supposed to be better. I have super-strength. I always have to be careful how I use it.”

“You stop that,” said his mom. “You are thirteen, and you were attacked in your hospital bed. It’s our job to protect you, and you did your best when we couldn’t. You are not to blame yourself for anything that happens to that man, do you hear me?”

“You guys don’t get it,” said Miles.

“You’re right,” said his dad. “We don’t get it. We’re your parents, and we’re never going to expect you to be a superhero. You’re our kid, and I would have shot to kill that man if I’d had the chance. I’m glad you understand that you need to be responsible with your powers. I’m glad you don’t want to ever use excessive force. But don’t you apologize for defending us from the nazi who tried to murder us. You better believe that in that moment, when he was reaching for his gun, our lives were more important than his. You weren’t Spider-Man last night. You were a kid in bed.”

“I need to be better than that,” said Miles. “I almost killed someone, and I almost got you killed.”

“You need to heal and go back to school and watch dumb movies with your friends,” said his mom. “That’s what you need to do. And you need to stop acting like it’s not our job to protect you.”

“You don’t understand, I have to be careful, I have to-.”

“You _have_ been careful,” said his dad. “There’s not been one time anyone’s ever been able to accuse you of using more force than you needed to. You’ve been careful from the beginning.”

“Not last night,” said Miles.

“You weren’t Spider-Man last night,” his dad again. “Listen to us when we tell you, you were a kid in a hospital bed.”

“I need to be careful,” Miles said again.

“We’re not complaining about you being careful, mijo,” said his mom. “We just don’t want you to beat yourself up over this.”

Miles nodded.

It had taken him an instant to put a man in a coma. Who knows what kind of brain damage he had. He hadn’t even thought about it. How was he supposed to deal with having that kind of power constantly at his fingertips?

His parents backed off, giving him his space for a while. Things got a little hazy for Miles for a bit as he calmed down, drifting through that grey area between sleep and wakefulness.

But Miles was never left alone for too long at the hospital. He started to become more aware of his surroundings again as his mom started bustling about his bed, taking care of some things before Dr. Chase came in for his morning rounds.

“Alright, how are we doing this morning, everyone?” he asked brightly as he came in.

“Mm, okay,” said Miles.

“Glad to hear it,” said Dr. Chase. “Let’s get a good look at you.”

He got a look at Miles’s chart first.

The exam wasn’t quite so detailed as that first one had been (the first one Miles could remember, at any rate). He was a good bit less radioactive than when he’d first woken up. Most of the sores on his body were closed, though not gone. The surface level bruising was gone. His abdomen was still pretty tender, though. His glands were still swollen. He was still in a good bit of pain when his medications wore down.

Dr. Chase was able to confirm that his vision had improved a little, which was the most reassuring thing he’d heard in a while.

“Alright, how about we try a few steps today?” he eventually asked of Miles.

Miles hated that the suggestion sounded daunting.

“Yeah, I’m ready to get out of this bed,” he said. What he was ready for was to be considered mobile. Mobile meant he could go to the bathroom. Mobile meant no more catheter; no more sponge baths. The thought of going through another one of those was what was _really_ daunting.

There was still a lot of shifting of tubes and wires just to get him up out of bed.

And it hurt, just getting himself up and seated at the edge of his bed. But he could do this. He could stand up, and it wasn’t easy, but it was easier than last time.

Dr. Chase held his hands out for Miles to grab onto if he needed to stabilize himself, and his mom hovered behind him. Miles took a step forward, and almost immediately began to feel dizzy. Not like he was getting light headed, but like he’d been spinning around, and the world kept spinning after he stopped. But he could push through that. He took another step. Dizziness and a lot of pain didn’t work well together. He stumbled as he tried to take a third.

“Hold up there, Miles,” said Dr. Chase.

Miles was supposed to reach out to take Dr. Chases hands if he needed to, but the Dr. reached out and steadied him instead, with his mom resting her hands against Miles’s back.

“What are you feeling there, Miles?” asked Dr. Chase.

“Um, really dizzy,” said Miles, not really wanting to admit it, but he didn’t think he could really hide it either.

“Alright, let’s get you back to bed.”

It was frustrating. Sure it hurt, but Miles could walk. His body could walk, but his head was getting dizzy for no reason!

“I’m thinking labyrinth syndrome,” was Dr. Chase’s eventual diagnosis after checking Miles’s ears.

“What’s that?” asked his dad.

“More inflammation,” said Dr. Chase. “This time of his right inner ear.”

Miles groaned in frustration. Something hurt? Inflammation. He couldn’t see? Inflammation. He couldn’t move around? Inflammation. Now he couldn’t walk without getting dizzy? He never thought he’d hate a word as much as he hated the word ‘inflammation.’

“What’s the prognosis?” asked his dad.

“It should heal up on its own,” said Dr. Chase.

“In how long?” asked Miles. He wanted to get out of that bed!

“Hard to say,” said Dr. Chase. “I wouldn’t expect it to stick around long, though.”

Dr. Chase ordered that they wait an hour for the dizziness to subside completely, and then Miles could try a nutrient shake.

Half of a nutrient shake, watered down.

They passed the hour working on math. Dr. Chase had brought a pair of glasses for Miles, though with his vision improving, the glasses were already the wrong prescription. But he could see well enough to read without blowing the text way up on his computer.

“Wait, did you black-out ‘Spider-Man’ on my laptop?”

“And on your cell phone?” said his dad.

“Why?” asked Miles, a little dumfounded. He was used to having some very basic parental controls on his devices, but his parents had never used it like this before.

“You’re in the hospital healing,” said his mom. “We don’t want you spending hours stressing through news and online forums about the…current events.”

“Is it because you’re hiding something from me?” asked Miles.

“Would we tell you if there was?”

Miles huffed. Thirteen, he was pretty sure, was a weird age for parents, where they weren’t ever sure if they were going to treat him like a young adult or a little kid. It was a little frustrating. Of course, usually it felt like: ‘Miles, you’re only thirteen, we need to wrap you in swaddling cloth,’ alternating with, ‘Miles, you’re thirteen, you’re supposed to know better.’

The dizziness didn’t actually last very long at all, fortunately, and Miles didn’t think they’d needed to wait the whole hour just to make sure that anything he felt from his failed attempt at walking wouldn’t sour his attempt at putting food in his stomach.

‘ _Food_ ’

“Here we go, one vanilla shake, coming right up,” said his mom.

“You say that like it’s ice cream,” said Miles. “And like you don’t regularly say, ‘what’s the point of vanilla when chocolate exists?’ And like that’s a whole shake, and not a half of a shake watered down,” said Miles.

“You want a chocolate milk shake? You need to work your way up there.”

He was tired of waiting, tired of being ill.

Honestly, the shake _was_ cool and refreshing to drink down. His mom told him to sip it slowly, but it felt so good, he drank the whole thing in a few seconds.

“Okay, no complaints, I guess,” said Miles. “I think I could go for the whole thing.”

“We’ll wait and see, mijo,” said his mom, a little disapproving.

Miles threw up a few minutes later, and for a moment, everything hurt just as bad as it did when he’d first woken up.

He kind of wanted to complain about it. Half a nutrient shake. He should be able to handle that, shouldn’t he? He would have complained about it, but he was too busy breathing through the pain while his mom rubbed his back and his dad held his hand tight.

His stomach ached terribly on into the afternoon, though the medicine his mom gave him took the edge off.

What if this was his life? What if he had to take his food through an IV for the rest of his life? No more ice cream, no more bread, or pasta, or greasy burgers. Forget ghost pepper asopao.

“Mom, it’s going to get better, right?” he found himself asking. “It’s not going to be forever?”

“No, mijo,” said his mom. “The stomach heals. Yours will heal.”

“Okay,” he said. Because he could stand this. He could stand it, as long as there was an end in sight. He just had to believe that there was an end in sight, that he’d be okay.

!!!!!

SYNOPSIS: On 01/29/19, suspects David Teller, Charles Barkley, David Nu, and Tyler Earp were involved in a brawl outside of the Holdout Bar on 39th, with bladed weapons involved. Brawl was interrupted by the vigilante Spider-Man (the younger). The four suspects were separated and restrained. BARKLEY and EARP were seen by Paramedics for knife wounds. TELLER and NU arrested for assault with a deadly weapon w/GBI, attempted murder.

…

SYNOPSIS: On 01/29/19, three year old Connie Liu was reported missing by her babysitter after wandering out of her home. Search was conducted, until child was found by the vigilante Spider-Man, who brought the child to officer Tanner #3472. Cross report sent to Department of Children’s Services.

…

Dispatch Log, 1/29/19

48270 Hayes Ave.

RP: Michael Connors

RP reports that they witnessed three men mugging a woman. Spider-Man Jr. intervened. Woman fled the scene. Spider-Man was hit from behind with a crow-bar/pipe and suspects ran away. Spider-Man pursued south down 32nd St.

Units dispatched to the area.

Suspects not located.

…

SYNOPSIS: On 01/29/19, suspect Mitchel Gardena attacked victim Janelle Gardena with a baseball bat outside of her place of business. Mitchel and Janelle are married, but no longer cohabitating. There is a restraining order in place protecting Janelle from Mitchel. Janelle was struck in the head, and received a bleeding head wound. Suspect was disarmed and restrained by the vigilante Spider-Man (black suit). Victim GARDENA was assessed by paramedics and transported to hospital. Suspect GARDENA was arrested on charges of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon w/GBI, assault on a spouse/significant other/cohabitant, attempted murder.

…

SYNOPSIS: 01/30/19, suspect Ramon Garcia drove under the influence of alcohol and struck juvenile victim pedestrian Isaiah Jones (14 y/o) in the crosswalk. GARCIA did not engage his breaks, and was stopped from hitting further pedestrians when the vigilante Spider-Man Jr. caught his vehicle and turned it over onto its side. GARCIA was not significantly injured. JONES was in critical condition, and transported to hospital. GARCIA was arrested on charges of DUI with injury.

…

Dispatch Log, 01/30/19.

3920 Lowry Ln., New York, NY 10012

RP: Vigilante Spider-Man (Newer)

RP reports he caught an unidentified man who had fallen from a rooftop. Suspected suicide attempt. Unidentified man is in agitated state.

Paramedics and PERT team dispatched.

Unidentified man transported to hospital, 51/50.

Unidentified man identified as Luca Knolls (39).

…

SYNOPSIS: 01/31/19, suspect Tin Le stabbed victim Maria Lynn twice in the mid left side of her back. Motive unknown. Relationship between LE and LYNN unknown. LE was restrained by the vigilante Spider-Man, who rendered first aid to LYNN. LYNN was pronounced dead at the scene. LE was arrested on charges of homicide.

Jefferson closed his laptop. Miles had started actively patrolling a week after the collider incident. Three days of patrolling, and Miles had intervened in three attacks with weapons, intervened in a suicide, seen a woman get hit in the head with a bat, seen a boy get hit by a car, and had a woman bleed out on him because someone had decided to murder her.

He felt as sick as Miles had been earlier that afternoon.

These were just the things PDNY had record of.

How do you get a kid vigilante with a secret identity a therapist?

You don’t. There is no therapist for this, because how could they trust the therapist wouldn’t feel like they were mandated to report Miles to DCS the moment Miles said that he intended to resume being Spider-Man? That meant that it was down to Rio and himself to make sure that Miles was okay.

Miles had seen six people die already. How had they thought he was okay? How had they missed that?

Except they hadn’t quite thought Miles was okay. Miles had been mourning Aaron. They’d expected grief from him, they’d been trying to help him through that lens of understanding. How many moments where Miles got too quiet, moments of frustration, moments where he wanted to focus on anything other than the question of how he was doing, had they overlooked because they thought they knew what was wrong? It was hard not to look at every moment of the last three months and question it.

But two weekends after the supercollider, three days after that woman had bled out in spite of Miles’s best efforts, he didn’t have to think too hard about that. Rio had found Miles sobbing in bed after dinner Friday night. They’d spent that weekend alternately trying to keep Miles busy and out of his own head, and trying to talk to him about Aaron. Miles had kept on telling them he was okay. They hadn’t known he was mourning the third life he couldn’t save.

Jefferson went back to his computer. He couldn’t help but to want to get all of the details available, now that he knew to look for them.

It was a grim report. 911 was called when an employee at a nearby open business heard Miles calling for someone to call an ambulance. The employee went outside and saw the suspect restrained and Miles trying to keep pressure on the wound. When officers arrived, the wound had been bandaged, and Miles was performing CPR. One of the officers took over CPR. Paramedics arrived, and the woman was pronounced dead.

In the witness information section, Officer Pellman, who had written the report, had written under witness demeanor: ‘ _distraught_.’

Miles told officers that he was swinging through the neighborhood when his ‘spider-sense' had gone off. He’d diverted to the trouble. He saw the victim stepping out of a store. He saw the suspect, who seemed to have been waiting for her, peel off from the wall beside the entrance, walk behind her, and stab her. Miles had arrived in time to stop the man from stabbing her a third time. He’d pulled the man back and down onto the ground, webbed him up, and started first aid.

_‘Spider-Man asked repeatedly what he should have done differently to save the victim’s life.’_

“Suspect LE spontaneously stated, ‘She knows what she did,’ while being mirandized by Officer Tanaka. Though Spider-Man was not nearby, he appeared to hear this statement and shouted at the suspect, ‘She didn’t know anything because you stabbed her in the back!’”

Officer Pellman reported he had tried to get Miles to sit down and take some deep breaths. Miles had run off, still distraught.

Miles was thirteen.

Was he sleeping at night?

If he was, then how? Keeping trauma a secret was exactly how teenagers wound up developing drug and alcohol dependencies. Had they tested Miles when he was admitted? Would his doctors tell them if there was something in his system? He wasn’t quite sure where the bounds of confidentiality were for doctors and under-aged patients. Maybe it was the sort of thing the parents had to ask about before they’d disclose anything.

He was pretty sure that he’d taught Miles about the dangers of drugs and alcohol, but he’d also taught Miles not to be a vigilante, and look how that had turned out!

He was maybe getting a little too ahead of himself. It wouldn’t hurt to ask Dr. Chase about it though. He _would_ have to talk to Miles about it though, either way. ‘Son, don’t do drugs, just say no,’ was a really different conversation from, ‘You’ve been through incredible trauma, and sometimes people try to use drugs to deal with that, but that’s not a healthy way to manage.’

He had to take a moment to pause. The first person he needed to talk to was his wife, because they were in this together. He was pretty sure they’d both be sorry if he ever forgot that. Rio wasn’t there though. She’d gone home, the way he should have last night. Excepting that, instead of spending the night, she was coming right back once she’d taken care of a few things. Neither of them felt like being far from the hospital after what had happened the night before.

There was so much that he and Rio hadn’t even spoken about.They had been so focused on Miles’s health, and safety, and the court proceedings.They still didn’t have a plan for what they’d do after Miles had recovered.Was Miles in trouble?Were they punishing him for saving a city full of people? For self sacrifice? They hadn’t discussed how they were going to handle the video that had been leaked of Miles being decontaminated.They’d both decided not to tell him about it yet, but they couldn’t keep it from him forever, no matter what filters they put on his devices, and maybe how they treated it would affect how he coped with it.Was Rio going to address the fact that Jefferson had volunteered to disarm the bomb?They still needed to work things out with the school even.Everything was on the back burner.He felt restless, he wasn’t used to putting things off, he wanted to go talk to Miles, to ask him if he was okay, even though Jefferson knew that he wasn’t.

Miles was already asleep, though. He’d asked Jefferson for some time on his own after his miserable afternoon, but Jefferson didn’t think he’d managed to stay awake long after being left alone. Miles was getting better about staying awake longer, but he didn’t have anything like a normal sleep/wake cycle going yet. He wouldn’t be surprised if Miles wound up awake at three in the morning.

Miles being asleep made it easier for Jefferson to project all his worries and fears onto him as he went through old case files.

He supposed the smart thing to do would be to hold off on reading anymore reports about Spider-Man until he had _someone_ awake to talk about them with.

SYNOPSIS: On 01/31/19, suspect Victoria Doula became heavily intoxicated and assaulted her boyfriend Ben Ryder and their son Wylie Ryder (9 y/o)…

!!!!!

“Miles?”

“Hm?”

Miles opened his eyes and smiled when he saw the swirling mini-portal hanging in the air above him.

“Down here,” he said.

“Yeah, I was figuring,” said Penny as the portal oriented itself down to face him. “Are you in the hospital?”

“What gave it away?” he asked, still smiling. Even with blurry vision, her friendly face was a sight for sore eyes.

“Are you okay? What happened? You were still in fighting shape after the attack on May’s house, so I assumed you had pretty standard healing and durability.”

“I mean, I think I do,” said Miles.

“What’s got you down? Are you okay? What happened to your communicator?”

“Uhhh, severe radiation poisoning, not doing so hot, and I smooshed the communicator, ‘cause I had to get decontaminated by the police.”

“How not hot are you doing? How many sieverts? Were you unmasked?”

“I don’t know, but it was a lot. I defused some nazi’s dirty bomb. Everyone’s pretty surprised I survived. And I got unmasked, but people are keeping it a secret?”

“Any internal contamination? What was the substance?”

“Yeah, it was boobytrapped with a spray, so I inhaled and swallowed some of it. It was cesium.”

“You must feel awful,” said Penni. “What are they treating you with? It’s the stupid ages over there-”

“Hey!”

“They probably have you on opiates for the pain, and…what, Noel blue dye to get the cesium out of your system?”

“Uhhh, yeah. Or, they call it Prussian blue, here.”

“Ugh,” said Penny. “I don’t know if I can get my hands on any proper pain killers for you. Let’s see…okay, we treat cesium contamination with phosphorous-trilicate. It’s a lot faster.”

“How much faster?”

“Eight-point-three times faster. It works basically the same way, but it’s safer, so you can take a much higher dose.”

“Well, can you get me some of that stuff?”

“Sure, I can have it overnighted. It’ll take a few hours to get it in tune with your universe, though.”

“So, uh, who are you talking to there, Miles?”

“Oh, um, hey, mom and dad,” said Miles. He couldn’t quite make out the look on Peni’s face, but he imagined it was just a little flustered. “This is Peni Parker. She’s the pilot of the SP//dr armor in another universe. She’s got a psychic connection to the radioactive spider that controls the bot.”

“I…what?” asked his dad.

“She’s from the year 3145.”

“3146,” said Peni. “We just had New Years.”

“Happy New Years,” said Miles.

“Thank you!”

“Why is there a hole in the air?” asked his mom.

“Uhhh, I guess I forgot to mention we’ve all been keeping in contact because Peni figured out how.”

“How old are you?” asked his dad.

“Dad, you can’t just ask a lady how old they are.”

“I’m nine!”

Miles definitely had enough visual acuity to see his dad throw his hands up in the air, and see his mom put her face in her hands. Peni couldn’t see them, though, and remained ignorant of just how unhappy his parents were to hear that there was a nine-year-old spider-person.

“So, good news, 3146 has a cool treatment for cesium exposure,” he said.

“Yes, we heard,” said his mom. “Miles’s doctors aren’t going to want to give him a medication they don’t know anything about.”

“That’s alright, I can send you some scholarly articles about it, and its pharmacological information. Also, are you feeding your spider-healing?”

“I’m not eating anything, they’ve got me just on an IV ‘cause I nuked my gut.”

“He’s on a high caloric total IV feeding regimen,” said his mom.

“That’s not enough,” said Peni. “According to the information I got from Peter B., and supported anecdotally from Noir and Gwen, your healing factor is fed primarily by vitamins A, B3, D, and E, as well as magnesium. So, get yourself onto some supplements. And, high caloric for you should be somewhere around…forty-five hundred calories a day.”

“Will do,” said Miles.

“Can you accept a new communicator right now?”

“I don’t think so,” said Miles. “I’m kind of under police protection right now. Might get it confiscated.”

Peni snickered a laugh.

“What?” asked Miles.

“You’re always under police protection. Your dad going to confiscate it if I give it to you a week from now?”

“Uhhh,” said Miles, glancing at his dad.

“Yeah, this is not a conversation I’m at all ready to have,” said his dad.

“You and Gwen,” said Peni. “You’re both lawless vigilantes, but you have cops for dads.”

“I wouldn’t say ‘lawless,’” said Miles.

“I mean, from my perspective,” said Peni.

“What _is_ your perspective?” asked his mom.

“I’m a soldier,” said Peni, unknowingly striking about a dozen nerves in both of his parents.

“Why are you a soldier?” asked his mom.

“Hm? Because people who can pilot mechs are rare, and I was the only person who could inherit SP//dr after my dad died. It was pretty lucky; there was only a fifty percent chance I’d be compatible, but I was! Anyway, I’ll let the rest of the Spider-Gang know you’re not dead, Miles. You get your rest, and I’ll get you your medicine, and your mom’ll get you some vitamins, and you’ll be out of the hospital in no time! Night!”

“Night, Peni,” said Miles.

“Silly, it’s noontime here, I’m having gummy worms for lunch. Byeee.”

She gave him her signature kawaii pose before signing off.

“Miles, is she really a soldier?” asked his dad.

“Sort of,” said Miles, not entirely comfortable with the designation himself. “She’s part of this government think tank that protects New York. There’s a psychic link between her and the spider they use to control the mech.”

“So…she’s also a spider-person,” said his dad.

“Yeah,” said Miles. “She got bit by a radioactive spider, but she doesn’t really have the typical power set. Just spider-sense and she’s decently strong. Her biggest asset is her brain, though, and that’s all her.”

“Are you okay with that?” asked his mom. “With her being a soldier?”

“I don’t really get a say in it?” said Miles.

“But are you okay with it?”

“Mmm, I don’t think it’s great,” Miles admitted. Something he’d never say to Peni herself. “She’s super capable, though. And she has a lot of support. And it’s not like anyone’s making her do it.”

“She’s nine, Miles,” said his dad.

“I know,” said Miles, who didn’t really want to have this conversation. His parents would try to circle it back to him being Spider-Man. It wasn’t like Miles didn’t get that there was something messed up about a government using a kid as a soldier. But at the end of the day, she was a spider-person, and she was doing her duty by her own choice. She’d chosen to get bitten. Peni’s world faced extraordinary threats, and needed extraordinary people to face them. She wasn’t the only mech pilot in her word. She wasn’t even the only kid mech pilot. But Miles had gotten the impression they’d be pretty SOL without her.

What did it matter if Miles was okay with it or not? It was beyond him. All he could do was be a good friend to her, and be available to lend her a hand if he ever could. Peni believed in her cause, just like Miles believed in his own.

“Can we get those vitamins?” asked Miles, very deliberately changing the subject.

“We’ll need to run it by your doctors,” said his mom.

“All my doctors? They’re just vitamins,” said Miles.

“At least one doctor,” said his mom. “Though we don’t even know what percentage of your daily value she’s expecting you to take.”

“Oh, it’s totally on my phone by now,” said Miles. “Peni’s good like that. Could we call up Dr. Chase?”

“Miles, it’s the middle of the night,” said his mom. “We’re not waking up Dr. Chase.

“But this could get my healing back in high gear,” said Miles.

“You’re stable, and even doctors need their sleep,” said his mom.

“I mean,” said his dad. “I’m pretty sure Dr. Christie would be deeply offended if you didn’t tell her the minute you found out something about Miles’s spider-powers.”

“Oh, yeah,” said Miles. “Dad’s totally right. I bet you Dr. Christie’s up right now caressing that vial of my blood she’s totally stolen.”

“Vial of blood?” asked his dad.

“Be nice,” said his mom. “But you might be right.”

“About the blood, or…”

The dosing information _was_ on Miles’s phone, just as he had expected, along with the scholarly articles about the cesium medication.

His mom sent Dr. Christie a text that read, ‘We’ve heard from one of his spider-friends who told us how to amp up his healing factor.’ The response back was very quick, and soon his mom was on the phone with the doctor. Not long after that, the decision was made that adding an extra nightime nutrient bag With the extra supplements to his IV was a low risk venture, and his mom took care of the addition.

Miles didn’t feel anything different once all of the supplements were added, other than a feeling of relief. He had a good bit of faith in Peni, and if she said that this would kick his healing factor back into gear, then he fully expected it would. Probably, he’d be well enough to go home when he woke up.

!!!!!

“Of course we’re excited about a new treatment for cesium exposure. That doesn’t mean we can administer a substance we’ve never heard of before, no mater what literature accompanies it.”

Miles had lost count of the number of times he’d awoken to random people talking in or near his room.

“I mean, it’s literally an approved treatment in the future, doesn’t that count for something?”

That was his dad’s voice. The words started catching up with Miles, and he realized they were talking about the new medication Peni had recommended.

“The FDA doesn’t recognize drugs approved in the future,” said someone. Oh, it was Dr. Nguyen. Miles hadn’t had much contact with her, as she’d been comfortable mostly just being there as a consultant.

“I mean, nurse Morales may have a point. This substance _could_ be classified as a dietary supplement, according to this literature,” said Dr. Chase.

“Well, she’s not _technically_ wrong…it would have to go before the hospital’s ethics board, at any rate.”

That all sounded to Miles like a lot more trouble than should be needed to take advanced future medicine.

Then he remembered, he’d been given all the vitamins and minerals he was supposed to need to jumpstart his spider-healing last night. Just how well had it worked?

Miles pushed himself up in bed so that he was sitting up. It hurt. It hurt all over. But he hadn’t been able to do that so easily yesterday. Miles took a deep breath. It hurt, but not in that deep all-encompassing way that he’d been getting used to. Then he remembered he’d pushed himself up with his hands, and his hands hadn’t felt like they were on fire from the pressure.

He brought one of his hands up to look at, and gingerly picked at the end of the gauze that they had wrapped his hand in, pulling it loose. It was too awkward to use his other heavily bandaged hand, so Miles just stuck the end between his teeth and started unwinding the bandage by dragging his hand away from his face. It took a few goes, stretching his arm away, spitting out the end of gauze, taking another piece in his mouth closer to the hand, starting over. But eventually he got his hand completely unwrapped.

He looked at it, (and he was squinting hard, but he could _see_ what he was trying to see), and his fingers no longer looked like overdone hotdogs. They were still healing, still damaged, still hurt, but for the first time, they seemed like they would really be fine. He practiced gently moving his unrestricted fingers around before making a loose fist. Alright, yeah, he could work with this.

“Mijo, what are you doing?” asked his mom from the doorway.

“Look at my hand, mami,” said Miles, awfully pleased with himself.

“It looks good,” she said, coming into the room. “I mean, it still looks awful, but it looks better!”

“Right? Man, I’ll bet I could run laps around this room.”

“Let’s hold off on any laps,” said Dr. Chase.

Miles grinned. He hadn’t been serious. Obviously, he wasn’t quite that well yet. But he was totally mobile, he knew it.

“You going to do a checkup on me?” asked Miles.

“Seems like the thing to do,” said Dr. Chase. “It’s been about twelve hours since your nutrition plan was updated.”

“Wait, how long have I been asleep?”

“Let’s see how well your body’s been making good use of that sleep,” said Dr. Chase.

It was the first time Miles had had all three doctors in the room for a check-up, and he found it to be a little daunting, with every bandage removed, every test performed. But things were better. Things were definitely better.

“We’ll need to get you a different pair of glasses,” said Dr. Chase. “Though you may well outgrow them again by tomorrow.”

Miles was ready to not need _any_ glasses by tomorrow.

Best of all, Miles _was_ declared mobile. Mobile, as in he could take trips to the bathroom. And, alright, walking sucked. It hurt all over, and it left him ready for a nap just walking fifteen steps, but it was worth it. It was so worth it. No more catheter. No more being completely helpless and dependent. Miles was ecstatic.

Even if it led to: “So…we never have to acknowledge this ever happened, right?” Miles asked Felix. He was hiding his face in the crook of his arm so he didn’t have to see what was going on.

“Are you worried I’m going to walk up to you in front of all your friends at school and say, ‘Hey, Miles, remember that big long tube I pulled out of you?”

“See, there you go acknowledging it,” said Miles. Felix was a chill guy, but he was way more intimately familiar with Miles’s body than Miles was really comfortable with. “But definitely don’t say it like that. That makes it sound like I’m one of those guys who puts things inside himself.”

“What do you even know about that?”

“My mom works in an ER, I know about stuff.”

“See, my family doesn’t let me talk about the gross stuff at the dinner table,” said Felix.

“Oh, no, gross stories are for long car rides,” said Miles, “not the dinner table.”

Felix snorted a laugh. “Almost done,” he said. “Though, you know, this just means you’re going to have to do all the urine collection yourself, now.”

“Wait, what?” asked Miles.

“The geiger counter’s not the only way we’ve been measuring how radioactive you are.”

“Didn’t want to think about that, Felix,” said Miles.

“Whelp, it’s your job to think about it, now,” said Felix.

And that was it, Miles was free and mobile. Kind of. But things were definitely looking up. He got some homework done, he listened to his music. He reread bits of The Lord of the Flies finding different points in the story to highlight how he would have written it differently. He drank some juice again, and it went well. They were holding off on trying another nutrition shake just yet, but the juice was nice. Maybe tomorrow he’d down a shake, and then follow it up with a burger. Best of all, he got to go in the bathroom by himself. Sure, he had to get a bunch of embarrassing instructions on how to literally not splash radioactive waste all over the place, but he got to do it himself.

Then Felix came back that evening with all of his stuff for a sponge bath.

“What’s all that for?” asked Miles.

“Bath time,” said Felix.

Miles frowned. “But I’m mobile. There’s a shower in the bathroom, right there.”

“Mijo, you’re just barely mobile,” said his mom. “You’re not ready to be alone in the shower yet.”

“But…” said Miles. His every achievement for the day felt like it had suddenly become null and void. He thought he was past this. He was better; he could take care of himself. He didn’t need Felix to help scrub him in his bed. He wanted his own dignity back.

“I can do it, come on,” he said. “I feel great.” He didn’t feel anywhere close to great, but he felt better! “I’ll sit on the shower bench, and everything’ll be fine. I’ll even be super quick.”

“Miles, it’s not safe,” said his mom. “Especially if you’re rushing to be super quick-.”

“Then I’ll be super slow,” said Miles.

“You can still fall off the shower bench, or fall when you stand up, even pass out,” said his mom. “You’re not ready to be out of bed unsupervised for more than a few minutes.”

“But…” he trailed off dejectedly.

“Hey, what if I was in there with him?” asked his dad. “Would that be a good compromise?”

It _was_ a good compromise. It wasn’t close to what Miles wanted, but it was way more dignified than a sponge bath. And, if Miles didn’t think too much about it, he could just pretend like they were back home, sharing a bathroom in the morning. That could work.

Except pretending fell apart at the execution. Because his dad gingerly helping him to sit down on the shower seat didn’t feel like sharing the bathroom at home. Having his dad fuss with the shower knobs for him, while he fiddled with his capped off PICC line, didn’t feel like sharing the bathroom at home. His dad wearing a lead apron didn’t feel like sharing the bathroom at home. Feeling like he’d just done an extreme workout from walking into the bathroom, undressing, and sitting down, didn’t feel like sharing the bathroom at home.

“Here you go,” said his dad, handing him a washcloth once the water was at a good temperature.

Miles draped it over his lap. Because this wasn’t like sharing the bathroom at home. His dad handed him another washcloth, and Miles started in on his feet. For a moment, bringing his foot up over his knee and leaning over it, he felt the slightest bit light headed, and had the sudden sense of just how easy it _would_ be for him to fall off the seat. He eyeballed the handrails and resolved to take it slow.

His dad sat down on the closed toilet lid.

“So how’s that English essay coming along?” he asked, never one to just let them sit in silence, and Miles was grateful for that, this time.

“Pretty good,” said Miles. Aside from preventing awkwardness, it was nice to take his mind off what he was doing. His body still hurt to move, and the soap irritatedthe remaining open sores all over him. “I think I’ve argued all my main points where I’d, like, sort of flip the story around. Like, instead of a fall from grace at the end, they begin with them taking all the worst things they learned from a world at war, and making each other miserable, and they have this low point where they have to decide to be better, and learn to make their own, like, Garden of Eden. So, a reverse fall from grace.”

“What’s their low point?”

“Oh, well, I figure Simon still has to die.”

“Oof,” said his dad.

“I mean, it is the most important part of the book.” Then, because he didn’t _want_ this to be awkward, he joked. “Hey, is it fitting for me to be talking about my Lord of the Flies essay when I’m just as naked as them?”

His dad laughed. “You remember when we read The Great Brain when you were little, and you wanted to know why you couldn’t skinny-dip like those boys did?”

“Man, why do parents always have to bring up embarrassing things from when their kids were little?” asked Miles.

“You’re not still little?” asked his dad.

“Man,” Miles complained. Sometimes he looked at his dad, and couldn’t fathom ever being that big and commanding.

“You want me to get your back for you?” asked his dad.

That didn’t feel like sharing the bathroom back at home. But for as flexible as Miles was, twisting his own arms around to scrub his back felt like an insurmountable task the way he was feeling at the moment.

“Yeah, okay,” he said.

His dad got another washcloth and started in between his shoulders. It wasn’t like when Felix had done it a couple of days ago. Not just because his dad was a little more gentle. But more that it being his dad doing it for him made it feel like he could relax about this. That it was okay for him to get a little help.

Then his dad took it upon himself to start washing Miles’s hair, and it felt soothing, fingertips running along his scalp. Which was when it suddenly hit Miles, this actually _was_ a good bit like sharing the bathroom back home. Except, not like it was a few months ago, but like it was more than a few _years_ ago, back when the easiest way to give little Miles a shower was to toss him in when one of his parents were taking one.

And suddenly Miles’s face was screwing up and he was sobbing, hunched over on his seat as his dad hovered nearby.

“Miles? Hey, what’s the matter?”

Miles shook his head, not even sure what the matter was, because this wasn’t so bad at all. He heard the sound of the shower knobs turning, as the water was turned off. His dad came further into the shower and put a hand on Miles’s shoulder.

“Hey, talk to me, Miles, what is it? Does something hurt?”

“Something always hurts,” said Miles. “There’s always something I can’t do. I- I just want this to be over. I don’t want to feel like a little kid who can’t do anything for himself. I’m thirteen, I’m not supposed to need help in the shower.”

“Miles, hey, this has nothing to do with how old you are. You’re hurt. It’s okay to need help.”

“I’m supposed to be better,” said Miles, the warm shower spray now replaced with hot tears running down his face`.

“What are you even talking about?” asked his dad.

“Everything’s messed up, and I’m messing everything up, and none of the other spider-people ever got unmasked after three months, and I couldn’t even stop one idiot with a gun without messing it up, and dad, I don’t know if I’m really ever going to be better.”

“Of course you’re going to be better, Miles. And you haven’t messed anything up.”

“I have!”

“You’ve been incredible,” said his dad. “You saved all our lives three times now. We had a bad situation last week, and you made the best of it. And I’m never going to say you were right to go up there, because I’m your dad, and it’s my job to protect you, but you didn’t mess anything up. You getting unmasked was always going to happen; the moment you made contact with that bomb, you were going to need to be hospitalized. That’s just…that’s just the hand we were dealt.”

“What if I don’t get any better than this?” asked Miles.

“Then you’ll have a dad who’s happy to scrub your back anytime, Miles.”

Miles sniffled. “I’m supposed to be-”

“There’s no supposed-to-be’s,” his dad told him gently. “You’ve gotta take life as it comes at you. You make the best of it. Stop worrying about supposed-to-be. Just because you don’t wind up where you expected doesn’t mean you can’t be amazing where you are. I don’t want you to ever think your superpowers are what made you special, Miles. Your value has nothing to do with how well you can punch criminals or even how self-sufficient you are.”

Miles sniffled again, and then he realized something.

“Hey, I’m crying,” he said.

“Yeah?”

“I mean, I’m really crying. I’ve got actual tears!”

His dad started for a moment. “Well, hey, there you go. Your tear glands, that’s one more box to check off as healed.”

Miles heaved out a heavy sigh. “I never thought I’d be relieved to be crying.”

“Hey, it’s good stress relief,” said his dad. “You okay?”

Miles nodded.

“Alright, well let’s get you cleaned up, then. I don’t know if you noticed, but you were getting pretty ripe out there.”

“Dad, come on, I just saved the city. You can’t be mean to me, like, for an entire month.”

“Oh, is that what you think?”

Miles figured he was going to be grounded the moment he got home from the hospital, so he didn’t credit the idea either.

!!!!!

“Hey, kid, so what’s this I hear about you beating nazis?”

Miles smiled groggily up at the portal over him.

“Hey, Noir,” he said. “Yeah, we had some nazis.”

“Good job, kid. You give them the ol’ one-two?”

Miles pushed himself back to sit up in his bed. “I didn’t actually fight any of them, until a couple nights ago, one got into my hospital room. But before, I just handled the bomb.”

He looked around the room. His mom was asleep on the couch, and his dad was still out.

“Then you did all the heavy lifting,” said Noir. “Foiled their plans, good on you. I’m proud of you, kid.”

“Thanks. Hope I didn’t worry you guys when I went dark.”

“Nah, I figured you had it handled. And look at you, repelling attacks from your hospital bed. Not easy to keep you down.”

“Ugh, hasn’t really felt like it,” said Miles.

“Lucky for you, I’ve got something that should help. Straight from Peni.”

“You got my meds?” asked Miles.

“Sure do,” said Noir. “Here you go, kid. Though, I will miss the entrancing bottle these things came in.”

Noir reached through the portal to hold out an emerald green plastic bottle, which he handed to Miles.

“You guys taking turns seeing me?” asked Miles, unable to think of any other reason for the pills to come through Noir.

“We figure you needed your rest,” said Noir. “I claimed the right to see you tonight to congratulate you on your victory against those schmucks. You keep up the good fight.”

“Will do, Peter. Thanks.”

Miles relaxed back into his bed once the portal closed.

“Another friend of yours?” his mom’s voice startled him. He hadn’t realized she’d woken up.

“Yeah,” he said. “He’s a really cool Peter. His favorite thing to do is punching nazis.”

“They have a lot of those where he comes from?” she asked.

It was just the two of them in the room. After a lot of back and forth between his parents, his dad had agreed to leave for the evening.

“Yeah, he’s in the 1930s, so there’s an unfortunate number of nazis.”

“Oh! Has the war started there, yet? Or…I suppose there might not be a war, if it’s a different dimension.”

“It’s started,” said Miles. “The US just hasn’t gotten in it yet. He’s been, um…he’s been putting together history from our different universes, and so, um, he’s actually been talking about assassinating Hitler, in his universe.” Actually, there was a list of names and places that had been compiled, as far as assassinations and acts of sabotage to end the war went, but it felt a little more sane to boil it down to ‘assassinate Hitler.’

His mom blinked at him. “Wouldn’t that be something?”

“I think he can do it,” said Miles. “Plus, Peter B. and Porker have already said they’d back him up if he ever got the opportunity.”

“You never said that you were able to visit each other.”

“Only for twelve hours,” said Miles. “The thing Peni did to these pills to make them stable here can’t really be done with living things. The tech she put in her travel devices keeps you stable for a little bit, but you always have to go back before long.”

“Have you ever gone?”

“Not for like a mission, or anything,” said Miles, pretty sure his mom wouldn’t believe him if he told her he hadn’t gone at all. “The Peters kind of put the kibosh on us kids getting ourselves involved in other universes trouble. S’why if I ever bite off more than I can chew, I’ll probably call Peter B., or Noir, or Porker, before like, Gwen or Peni.”

He’d only visited Gwen’s universe once, as a test. Opening portals safely was resource intensive on Peni’s end, and the cost was exponential to the size of the portal.”

“When _would_ you call Porker?”

“If I need to break the rules of physics,” Miles said easily.

“Noir, if you need to punch nazis?” asked his mom.

“Something like that,” said Miles.

“Why didn’t you call your friends when you were dealing with the bomb?”

Miles shrugged. “I didn’t want to irradiate them, too. I’d thought maybe Peni could give me some technical advice, but even then, I wasn’t sure if radiation would pass through the portal itself. And, I mean, from my perspective, I think it all worked out okay.”

“Oh, from my perspective, one child in the hospital with radiation poisoning is better than two,” said his mom.

“Can I take my meds now?”

“Tomorrow morning, so they can monitor you,” said his mom.

“Hmph.”

«Are you pouting under all of those bandages?»

«Yeah,» said Miles.

«Get some sleep, my son.”

!!!!!

The next morning saw Miles going into the bathroom to procure some ‘before’ samples for the doctors. This was followed by a couple more hours of basic chemical analysis of one of his new pills, before the hospital had begrudgingly allowed him to take the medication. His parents had had to sign about a dozen different forms first, promising not to sue the hospital if something went wrong.

Predictably, Miles did not immediately feel any better, or even any different. Even if a part of him had irrationally imagined he would. The medication only helped his body flush the cesium out of his system faster. That meant all it was doing was preventing further damage over the next few days.

Miles did also feel a god bit better when he woke up than when he’d gone to bed. They let him walk out into the hallway and walk down to the windows at the end of the corridor. There was a window seat there, and Miles was able to sit down there and look out at the city.

Perhaps it should have been a good chance to appreciate the view and relax, but all the sight of his city did for him was make him think of the duties he’d abdicated for the last week. Duties he still didn’t know when he’d be able to return to. He couldn’t help but think that there were probably people in the morgue right now that he could have saved, if he’d been out there. And maybe he could have been, if he had not gotten himself sprayed. He thought he could have recovered pretty quickly if he had only had to deal with the radiation coming off the bomb itself. It was the internal contamination that had probably stressed out his healing factor too much in the first place.

He kept thinking about why his spider-sense hadn’t warned him about the spray. It was his own fault, he was pretty sure. He had been rushing, after the sniper, hyper focused on getting the panel off. His spider-sense wasn’t quite the same as Peter’s. More powerful in ways, leading him across town at times, like Gwen’s had, but also more fallible. Miles had to keep himself in tune with it. And because he’d let that slip, he’d missed the spray.

Because he’d missed the spray, he couldn’t save anyone now. The city needed him, and he wasn’t there.

He missed the days when getting hit by a drone was his biggest screw-up after officially taking on the mantle of Spider-Man, but then, the screw ups had started piling up as soon as he had actually started patrolling. This wasn’t even the first time his Spider-Sense hadn’t been good enough, fast enough.

“What are you thinking about?” asked his dad.

Miles shrugged. He knew his dad would just tell him that it wasn’t his job in the first place to be saving anyone.

“Well, let’s get you back to your room. Your hearing shouldn’t be too long from now.”

“What’re the chances they just drop it?” asked Miles.

“Not likely,” said his dad.

The walk back was even more tiring, but he made it.

“Continued Detention Hearing is brought to order,” the bailiff eventually announced. “The Honorable Judge Claudia Porter is presiding. Case is that of the unidentified child John Doe, also known as Spider-Man.”

“Alright,” said Judge Porter, “the purpose of this continued hearing is to determine whether or not the Department has identified an appropriate safe plan for the child’s placement, and proceed accordingly. Ms. Friedman, the Department’s position?”

“The Department has been unable to identify a placement that meets the care needs of the child.”

Miles perked up.

“I’d like to hear from Ms. Duong on her efforts,” said Judge Porter.

“The matter of placement has been elevated to the highest levels, your honor,” said his social worker. “All representatives in the interstate compact have been contacted. We have not heard back definitively from all representatives yet, but none of those that have given a response have suggested having a suitable placement, based on the placement criteria listed on my addendum report.

“We have reached out to the District Attorney’s Office to inquire about the use of the witness protection program. They are still assessing their willingness to create such an agreement. They recognize that my client has valuable information for many of their cases, but they are also doubtful that they could maintain him in witness protection, given his needs, and the fact that we still do not know his identity or who his guardians are.

“We have also reached out to juvenile probation. They have indicated the possibility of placement options that they are assessing in advance of the possibility of charges being brought against the child. However, charges have not been brought at this time, and the impression that I’ve gotten is that they may well not be.

“Quite frankly, your honor, every agency we’ve interacted with seems to want to delay any action concerning the child in the hopes that another will take care of it for them.”

“That’s as may be,” said Judge Porter, “but it’s the reality we have to contend with. As much as I would like to, I cannot compel any of these agencies to bite the bullet on this matter. Do you have an update on the child’s condition.”

“Yes, your honor. The child’s doctor reports that while many of the injuries to the child’s face and hands make him impossible to identify, his constitution has improved drastically. He is already considered mobile, and could be able to AWOL under his own power soon.”

“Mr. Temple, do you have anything to add to your position?”

“I don’t, your honor. I think at this point it is clear that barring a significant intervention from law enforcement, my client will be able to AWOL with his secret identity intact, making the matter of placement almost moot. On the off-chance that he does not AWOL, the Department has no safe placement for him.”

“Ms. Friedman?”

“Our only counterargument would be that if the Court orders the continued hospital hold, and continues the issue of placement, then should the child AWOL, he could be classified as runaway, and juvenile probation could be forced to open a case.”

“I wasn’t under the impression that the Court made orders with the intention of tripping children into the criminal justice system,” said Mr. Temple.

“Both of your proposals necessitate the Court breaking from precedent,” said Judge Porter. “Both proposals rely on the Doe child being identified at a future date for jurisdiction to be exercised. In the end though, I believe I’ll leave the question of criminality to the justice department.

“Given that the Department has no safe placement for the youth, who is likely to AWOL anyway, I hereby order the child detained in the home of the parents. The child is admonished to alert his parents or legal guardians to these proceedings, and to provide his parents with the contact information for his county social worker Ms. Duong. The Department will continue placing weekly notices in local publications asking for the parents to come forward. Should the parents or legal guardians not identify themselves to the court, they will be considered to be in contempt of the court, should they be identified by other means during the life of this case. The county social worker Ms. Duong will cary this case through completion, and all files will be sealed to the Department and the Court’s highest level of security. The Department is not to share identifying information regarding the Doe child with any law enforcement agency, barring further orders from this or a higher court. With that, I bring this detention hearing to a close. And, Spider-Man?”

“Uh, yes ma’am?”

“I want you to know that I will be very disappointed if I see you swinging through the streets again anytime soon. I hope that you understand that our concern is for your safety.”

“I um, I understand,” said Miles.

“Good. Because I also want you to know, we are not condoning you running away from the hospital. We are not condoning you keeping your identity a secret from us. We have made these decisions because we believe it is the best way to keep you safe, given your intent to run away.”

“Yeah, I uh, I get that.”

“I hope so. Thank you, everyone, for your participation today. Ms. Duong, Mr. Temple, do make sure that the Doe child has your contact information.”

Miles looked up at his parents when the call was finally ended.

“I guess we won, then,” he said.

“Don’t think you can get away with it a second time, Miles,” his dad said, heavily. “There’s consequences to playing the system like this.”

Miles nodded. The judge and his dad both were making it hard for him to feel like this was a win, but it wasn’t like the ruling was all that important in a practical sense. He was always going to run before he could be formally unmasked, and he had no intent of ever being unmasked to anyone else, let alone CPS. He would have thought that his dad would be a little bit more happy with being more legally in the clear, though. Now, no matter what happened, no one could ever say that his parents had ‘kidnapped’ him from the state.

“Well, it’s over for now, at any rate,” said his mom. “And, it’s lunch time.”

Miles hummed thoughtfully, as he looked with doubt at the nutrient shake his mother was holding out. The last time he’d tried one of these things, he’d thrown up and been in a lot of pain afterwards. It was almost enough to make him refuse it. Except, maybe it was because he wanted to hurry up and _be_ better, or maybe it was because he still wanted to fill his stomach, but he wanted that shake.

He did sip it slow this time, though.

It was nice.

“Okay,” he said when it was finished, “now how about a burger.”

His mom swatted at him.

“Have you thought about how you’re going to get out of the hospital?” asked his dad.

“I mean, my first thought was to web sling out of here,” said Miles. “Then I remembered I don’t have my web shooters. And also, these windows don’t open, do they?”

“Were you thinking you were well enough to be swinging between buildings?” asked his mom.

“At high speeds,” said his dad. “How fast do you even go on those things?”

“Uhhh, I don’t think anyone’s ever clocked me,” said Miles. “But someone once clocked Peter swinging at a hundred and twelve miles an hour. I think he was probably throwing himself into his swings when they got that number, ‘cause I don’t think I swing around that fast unless I’m really hauling to get somewhere. ‘Course, short distances, I can run faster than that.”

“How fast can you run?” asked his mom.

“Stupid fast,” said Miles. “Anyways, I figure I can just turn invisible and walk out of here.”

“How far can you walk, is the question,” said his dad.

Miles frowned at his lap. He hated every reminder that he’d gone from being hyper-mobile to being glad-just-to-be-mobile.

“The bathroom yesterday, the hallway today. The parking lot by tomorrow, I should think,” he finally said.

“We’ll see what Dr. Chase thinks about that,” said his Mom.

“I’m out of the woods, aren’t I?” asked Miles. “My stomach’s not hurting from the shake. I’m not going to be all that radioactive by tomorrow evening. My vision's only a little blurry.”

“You still have trouble taking deep breaths,” said his dad, “and your hands still look like you stuck them in an oven.”

“My stomach and my lungs were the worst affected. And my stomach’s already all healed-”

“That shake is very easy to digest, mijo,” said his mom.

“So that means my lungs are basically fine, and I don’t need my hands to be one hundred percent to get out of here. They work, don’t they?”

“Healing doesn’t work that way, Miles,” said his mom.

“Well _my_ healing’s in high gear,” said Miles, “and the longer I stay here, the more likely it is someone’s going to try to kill me again, or a federal agent is going to come in and try to get a picture of my face.”

“He has a point, there,” said his dad.

Miles thought he’s been making a lot of good points over the last few days, but he’d take what he can get.

“Plus, you’re a nurse, mami,” said Miles. “I’m pretty sure I’d be okay at home.”

“I’m glad you have faith in me, mijo, but there could be complications that I’m not equipped to handle at home.”

“Is that likely?” asked Miles. “With how well I’m doing, how fast I’m healing?”

“I don’t know,” said his mom. “That’s why we’ll talk to your doctor.”

Doctor Chase _didn’t_ think it was a great idea. He was worried about further complications too, and he noted Miles wouldn’t be able to lug an oxygen tank with him while invisible, meaning he’d have to make the trip without oxygen support. But that evening, there was another attempt by paparazzi to incur on his hospital room, which rather tipped the scales for everyone. The next morning, after his check-up, Miles turned invisible and walked out of his hospital room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Porker and Noir pull up to Peter B. in a cartoon car like: https://i.imgflip.com/4dr1u5.jpg


	4. Overexposed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See the end notes for a spoilery warning for this chapter.

Miles _had_ woken up feeling even better than he had the day before. He had even gotten to eat a bowl of lightly sweetened oatmeal, after his checkup, which his stomach hadn’t rejected. Aches and pains persisted, but they didn’t seem to limit him nearly as much. As doubtful as his parents were, Miles was all for his ‘escape attempt’.

Even with everyone present being in on it, they still tried to make it look legit. Officer Cho, his dad’s partner, came to check in with his dad. His mom stepped out for her morning break. His dad and Officer Cho went off to another room to talk shop. Then Miles unplugged his PICC line, turned off the vital signs machine next to him, pulled the various wires off of himself while leaving the sticky pads they connected to littered around his body. Lastly, because he’d miss it the most, he pulled off his nasal cannula. Then he turned himself invisible, and followed his dad and Officer Cho out of the closed ward, right past the officers guarding the doors. His dad started talking with those officers while Officer Cho walked off.

Could Officer Cho tell that he was following, or just hoping that everything was going according to plan?

Miles already felt tired by the time they reached the elevator and wound up leaning against the wall to take some of the weight off his feet. He missed his oxygen. It was an unfortunate reminder that for all that he’d healed there was plenty still wrong with him.

The elevators were just so far from the lobby. Why was that? And there didn’t seem to be any side exit for Officer Cho to cut through to the parking garage. God, this was so much walking.

Wouldn’t it suck if he passed out and lost his invisibility?

Check that, wouldn’t it suck if he passed out and didn’t lose his invisibility.

He didn’t pass out, though he kind of wanted to, and he kept tailing Officer Cho. He kept in tune with his spider-sense, to keep anyone from running into him, as he focused on Officer Cho’s back. He tuned everything else out. How fast his breathing had gotten, his racing heart, how heavy everything felt. Just keep following Officer Cho’s back. He could do this. He was Spider-Man. Spider-Man could walk himself out of the hospital. Spider-Man could put one foot in front of the other.

When Officer Cho opened up the door to the back seat of his personal car, under the guise of tossing his coat on the back seat, Miles let himself collapse in after it. His dad’s partner got into the driver’s seat and started the car. He looked over his shoulder to back out of the space, before driving off.

“You’re back there, right? I didn’t imagine the car rocking a little bit?”

“I’m here,” said Miles miserably. “But I might fall asleep.”

“Yeah, well, it’s a bit of a drive. But buckle up, yeah? Your dad would kill me if I drove you unrestrained.”

“I won’t tell him if you don’t,” said Miles.

“You think he won’t ask me? I can’t lie to that man.”

Miles groaned in a not at all piteous way.

“You okay?”

“Ish,” Miles said.

“Well, ish your way into a seatbelt, would you?”

Geez, this guy was spending way too much time with his dad.

Miles buckled the middle belt around his waist, leaving him free to continue stretching himself across the back seat. He dozed off pretty quickly, without Dad Jr. nagging him, which made his graceless fumbling with the belt worth it.

He came to as Officer Cho turned off the engine, a few seconds before the man spoke up to say, “We’re here.”

Miles groaned. He could have used a longer nap, but he couldn’t just stay on Officer Cho’s back seat all day. He slipped back into invisibility before squirming his way up into a seated position and undoing his seatbelt.

“Here’s your house key,” said Officer Cho.

“Thanks,” said Miles.

“It’s no problem,” said Officer Cho. “Seriously. I’m glad you’re okay. I’m glad I could help like this.”

Miles was uncomfortably reminded of the heavy stakes they had both barely survived the week prior.

“You going to be okay getting into the house on your own?” asked Officer Cho.

“It’s like, ten steps,” said Miles. “I’ll be fine.”

He was not fine.

They’d never practiced steps in the hospital. There were no steps in the hospital. Miles felt dizzy by the time he reached the fifth step. He kept on feeling dizzy as he finally collapsed on the couch.

“Okay,” he said to the empty room, “maybe I could have used another day in the hospital.”

Sitting on the coffee table was a shoebox-sized device, placed by his mother the night before. Miles reached over and pulled the tube connected to it over to himself, and secured it around his head, slotting the cannula into place, before pushing the power button on.

“Oh, sweet oxygen, I missed you,” said Miles. “Thank you, Jesus.”

Ten steps earned him another nap, so Miles pulled the knitted blanket from the back of the couch down onto himself and dozed for the rest of the morning. He woke up a few times, but when he woke up from a stressed dream about a city in chaos, he decided he’d had enough of sleep for the moment.

He sat up, still thinking of the city beyond the curtains that were letting in a fraction of the noonday sun. He took stock of his weakened self. He was still wearing a hospital gown, still wearing electrodes and bandages he didn’t need. He undid the ties on the gown and started unwrapping himself of his bandages, and pulling off the tacky electrodes stuck on him. It felt freeing. For all that he’d just been thinking he could have used more time in the hospital, he was definitely more than ready to have all of this stuff off of him. He wanted it all gone. He wanted the smell of chloraprep off of him. He stuck two fingers under the hospital band around his wrist, knowing that he could easily pull apart the clasp with his teeth, but relishing in using a smidge of super-strength to rip the thing off his wrist in an instant. Everything went onto his lap, and when he thought he had about everything off of himself, he stood up, letting the gown come fully off as he used it to make a bundle of the hospital trappings he’d divested himself of. The bundle in one hand, his oxygen machine in the other, Miles made a quick trip to the kitchen trash to throw the offending items out. He paused there, looking at the PICC line still in his arm.

He wanted it out, but his mom had forbidden him from removing it on his own and made him promise to wait for her to come home. Frowning, he made his way to his room to get dressed in a pair of sweats.

He’d looked up a video on how to take the line out, and it looked entirely simple. The only technical part was keeping everything strictly sterile. The rest was just pulling off the dressing, pulling the long tube out, and putting a bandage on it. Miles could understand why making sure that a hole in his arm to a vein leading directly to his heart didn’t get infected was important, but his spider-healing was totally in full force! The infection he’d had at the hospital just went to prove his healing factor could handle an infection when it wasn’t over-stressed. He really wanted that line out, and it would be so simple to get it out. Only the knowledge that he really needed to be on his best behavior with his parents kept him from ripping off the tape and going to town on the tube that ran through his chest.

His stomach grumbled.

Well, if he couldn’t have the PICC line out, he could at least feed himself. It was no wonder he was hungry, he’d left the hospital when his nutrition bag was only half-empty, and it was already time for another bag. But there were no more IV feedings. There were nutrition shakes in the fridge for him. Miles’s eye caught on a jar of peanut butter left out on the counter, though, when he reentered the kitchen.

No jar of peanut butter had ever looked so appetizing and appealing as it did to Miles in that moment. He snatched it up without a moment’s thought and grabbed a table knife from the drawer. He opened the jar and stuck the knife in for easier carrying, before grabbing a box of graham crackers from the cabinet. This he stuck under his arm, so he could carry it, the peanut butter, and the oxygen machine back to the couch.

No one was there to judge Miles as he lay reclined on the couch with the jar of peanut butter tucked in the crook of one arm, pulling out half sheets of graham cracker to slather in peanut butter, and shoving them into his mouth. It was a simple pleasure.

His phone and laptop were still with his parents, so Miles turned on the television, tuning it to his favorite music station. He closed his eyes as he chewed. Good music, comfort food, and some privacy for the first time in forever.

Privacy, until there was a knock on the door.

Miles groaned to himself.

“Hello? Miles? Are you home?”

The voice was familiar, but Miles couldn’t place it to someone who would be knocking on his door on a…Miles was pretty sure it was Saturday?

He went over to look out the peephole.

“Miles?” they asked, probably noticing the peephole darken. It was his guidance counselor.

Miles couldn’t think of a reason not to open the door, so he did.

“Ms. Tremaine?”

She looked a little taken aback when he opened the door. In retrospect, perhaps the nasal cannula was a bit of an extreme look.

“Miles, hi,” she said. “I’m…glad to see you up and about. Are your parents home?”

“Uh, no, they’re at work,” said Miles.

“Oh, do you know when one of them will be home?”

“In a little while, I guess,” said Miles, still trying to figure out what his guidance counselor was doing at his home.

“Is there…anyone else home, I could check in with?”

“Um, no?” said Miles. He was definitely old enough to be home alone. “What’s up?”

“Well,” said Ms. Tremaine, very clearly trying not to frown, “I’ve been trying to get in touch with your parents about your return-to-school plan. Make sure everything’s sorted for a smooth transition. Actually,” she paused, and bent over, reaching to pick something up off the ground. “I left this in your door jamb a couple of days ago.” She held out a card. It had the school logo, Ms. Tremaine’s name and number, and on the bottom it said: Mr. and Mrs. Jefferson-Morales I’d hoped to see you on 4/9 for a home visit. Please give me a call when you are able.

“Oh,” said Miles. He couldn’t exactly say that his family had hardly been at the house for well over a week now. “We’ve been busy, I guess.”

“I’m sure,” said Ms. Tremaine. “I saw your father on the news about the Spider-Man case.”

“Oh, yeah, well, both of my parents have been dealing with that, actually.”

“And how have you been doing?” she asked.

“Uh, just tired,” said Miles. He was kind of hanging off the doorway, at that moment. “Tylenol helps, and the rash’s finally going away.” He’d looked up mono pictures, and it was not pretty. The fact that there was still some faint marking to his skin did help the lie of it though.

“You’re sure you’re okay?” she asked. She was eyeballing the oxygen tube again.

“Oh, this?” asked Miles. Breathing trouble wasn’t a symptom of mono. “Um, yeah, I had like, a secondary infection, but it’s cleared up already.” He rubbed at his chest, which was aching with the reminder.

“And, you’re okay to be on your own?” she asked.

“Yeah,” said Miles. “Just tired, you know? I should go lie back down, actually. But I’ve been working on my homework too.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” said Ms. Tremaine.

“Well, I’ll tell my parents you came by,” said Miles.

“Thank you,” said Ms. Tremaine.

Miles huffed a sigh of relief when he was able to close the door and was quick to go collapse on the couch again. Well, he was definitely tired enough to actually have mono.

Too bad it was the kiss of beta and gamma rays that had put him in this state, and not the kiss of a cute foreign exchange student.

The next time there was a knock on the door, Miles ignored it. He wasn’t going to get up just to have another awkward conversation at the door. Whoever it was knocked again, making Miles huff. He bolted up from his reclined position though, when someone unlocked the front door.

“Miles? You okay?”

“Ganke?” asked Miles

“Dude!” Ganke rushed forward to give Miles a big hug.

“Good to see you too,” said Miles.

“Sorry, you kind of freaked me out when you didn’t answer the door,” said Ganke.

“How’d you get in, anyway?”

“Your dad gave me a key and asked me to check in on you,” said Ganke. “How are you doing?”

“Just tired, man. I’m practically all healed at this point,” he said, letting himself collapse back against the couch cushions.

“Yeah, that tube around your face tells a different story,” said Ganke.

“What, this? Oxygen clears the head, you know? People pay good money to sit down at an oxygen bar these days. I’m lucky I got an in at the hospital.”

Ganke snorted. “Whatever, man. However you wanna spin it.”

“Hey, what’s that crinkling in your bag, there?” asked Miles.

“Chips.”

Miles held his arms out piteously. “Feed me!”

Ganke scoffed. “Don’t you have a weak stomach? I don’t think you should be eating artificial cheese powder.”

“Hey, I’ve been snacking just fine,” said Miles.

Ganke rolled his eyes but tossed Miles a snack-sized bag of Doritos before going to raid the kitchen. Miles happily opened the bag and tossed a couple of neon orange chips into his mouth. Except he grimaced the moment the sharp taste of the cheese powder hit his tongue, and a shiver of disgust seemed to run from there, down to his gut, and back again.

“Bleaugh.”

“Did you just spit the chips back into the chip bag?” asked Ganke.

“No…maybe. Can you get me some water, please?”

Ganke shook his head, but he was an awesome friend and brought Miles a glass of water to rinse his mouth with, along with a tin of chocolate drizzled popcorn he’d found in the pantry.

“Toss me a kernel?” asked Miles.

“Your parents are so going to fire me,” said Ganke, tossing a piece of popcorn into Miles’s mouth.

“Yes!” said Miles, happily. “Sweets are a go, I repeat, sweets are a go.”

“I think you already proved that with however many graham crackers covered in peanut butter you’ve already had.”

“Hey, do not judge me. You cannot judge me. I’ve seen the unholy concoctions you’ve made in that rice cooker of yours.”

“Uh, skittles rice is awesome, thank you very much.”

“You wrapped it in seaweed!”

“It was good!”

“So you say,” said Miles.

“Okay, first of all, you’re being awfully judgey, Mr. You-Cannot-Judge-Me,” said Ganke.

“And you can’t,” said Miles.

“Second of all, literally no one cares if you put peanut butter on a graham cracker,” said Ganke.

“And they shouldn’t.”

“The reason I’m judging you-.”

“Nope!”

“Is ‘cause you’re laying on your back, in your sweatpants, mainlining this stuff like someone broke your heart, and this is your comfort food.”

“I mean, my heart was like, literally broken,” said Miles.

“Really?”

“I don’t know, probably?”

“Anyway, like, at least use a plate. And spice it up, a little.”

“I swear to god, if you tell me to put skittles on my peanut butter…”

“I don’t put skittles on everything! And, obviously, you put chocolate on it.”

“Oh, that’s a good idea,” said Miles. “Popcorn me?” he requested, opening his mouth.

Ganke tossed another kernel his way, hitting his nose this time.

“Five-second rule,” Miles declared.

“You know, the couch cushion’s where people put their butts, right?”

“Ew,” said Miles. “You had to make it gross?”

“What? It’s true! It was already gross.”

“Still tastes good,” said Miles. “Popcorn me!”

An hour later, Miles and Ganke were too busy chatting and goofing off to notice his mom come inside.

“Miles, what have you been eating?”

“Uhhh, hey Mami,” Miles greeted. “This is totally all Ganke’s food.”

Ganke gestured urgently at the side of his mouth, leading Miles to swipe away a smear of chocolate from his own.

His mother growled. «You’re home for a few hours, and already you’re eating junk food,» she said, marching up to him.

Miles gave her his best disarming grin.

She reached down and picked up his arm, examining the PICC line.

“I didn’t even think about touching it,” said Miles.

“Good,” she said. “How’s your stomach feeling?”

“Fine,” said Miles. “We figured out, sweets good, Doritos bad.”

“I could have told you ‘Doritos bad,’” she said.

“Yeah, yeah,” said Miles. His mom had never been a fan of overly processed foods. “I don’t suppose we can take care of the plastic tube that’s still reaching into my poor heart?”

“That tube helped keep your poor heart beating, young man.”

“Sí, mami, but I still hate it,” said Miles.

“Alright,” said his mom. “The sooner the better, anyway. Ganke, could you help me clear off the coffee table?”

Thus began a lot of cleaning and sanitizing, and way too much pomp and circumstance just to yank a tube out of him. But eventually, his mom had a clean surface, clean and gloved hands, and some sterile bandages.

“Ganke, are you squeamish?” she asked.

“Oh, I’m totally squeamish,” said Ganke.

“Okay, you might want to look away, then.”

Miles winced as all of the transparent film dressing was peeled back from his arm. The PICC line was really sealed in tight. He was ready for his mom to just start yanking, but of course, she had to open up a thing of ChloroPrep and go to town on the area around the tube. Then, finally, he watched in morbid fascination as his mom pulled the thing out of him. He’d expected to see blood. Honestly, he’d expected the whole line to be dripping with blood as it came out. The video he’d watched had shown the procedure done on a surgical dummy, and that had come out clean, but honestly, this wasn’t so different. And, as he watched inch after inch of plastic tube come down from his chest and through his arm, he thought he should feel something more profound or disturbing than just the faint tugging sensation.

For as simple as he had thought it would be, for as overblown he had thought the whole procedure was, it was strangely anti-climactic.

“There we go,” said his mom, placing the length of tubing down on a plastic sheet she’d put down on the coffee table with one hand, as the other held a wad of gauze to his arm. “Hold that for me?”

Miles reached over and held the piece of gauze down, as his mom started counting blue bands on the tube she’d just removed, making sure that she hadn’t somehow left a piece of it behind.

“So what’s the verdict? Do I have an inch of plastic swimming in my right ventricle?”

“No,” she said, “all accounted for. Let’s get this wound dressed, and we’ll be just about all done.”

“Honestly, mom, I think a bandaid would do it.”

Of course, his mom didn’t agree, and he wound up wrapped up and taped up, with firm instructions not to take it off before she said he could.

“So what are we doing to celebrate?” asked Ganke, turning back from his phone now that nothing unsettling was happening to Miles’s body.“Dude, that whole thing was inside you?”

Miles grimaced at the first question (as much as he’d wanted it out of him, the PICC line hadn’t even ranked on the list of uncomfortable things about his hospital stay). He just wasn’t so sure his parents were in the mood to celebrate, with however much trouble he was in.

“Oh, and how do you celebrate a return from the hospital, Ganke,” asked his mom.

“I mean, we haven’t had any of your cookies since Valentines' Day,” said Ganke.

“Oh, you’re after my cookies now? You haven’t had enough sugar?”

“Hey, we’re growing boys,” Ganke complained, “and this guy here could eat a horse.”

“Who’s eating a horse?” asked his dad, walking in.

“Me, apparently,” said Miles.

“But he’ll settle for some cookies, apparently,” said his mom.

“Oh, he’ll _settle_ for some cookies,” said his dad.

“It’s either cookies or a horse, Mr. Jefferson,” said Ganke. “The PDNY stables are our only hookup for a horse, so it’s your call, sir.”

“That is a false dilemma,” said his dad. “You forgot, we can feed Miles spinach and kale smoothies.”

Miles gagged at the thought.

“I’ve been through your kitchen, sir. You’ve got chocolate chips. You don’t have any kale.”

“Alright, compromise, spinach and chocolate chip cookies.”

“Mom, save us, please,” said Miles.

“Well, we’ve got three racks in the oven,” she said. “That’s one batch of chocolate chip cookies for Ganke, one batch of mantecaditos for me, and one batch of spinach cookies for my boys.”

“You know, honey, I think just this once, we could indulge in white chocolate macadamia.”

“Good choice,” she said.

Which was how Miles found himself in the kitchen with his parents and Ganke making two batches of cookie dough that would become three trays of cookies. It wasn’t exactly how he was expecting his day to go, and while he couldn’t complain about it, he also couldn’t help but wish that the other shoe would finally drop.

He kind of wanted to hash it all out right then and there, just ask Ganke to give him and his parents some space, and get into it.

He also wanted cookies, and he liked not being in trouble, so he held his tongue.

“So what have things really been like, since I’ve been gone?” he asked as he leaned against the counter and cracked eggs into a bowl

“Crazy, dude,” said Ganke. “You’re like super popular right now. Did you see the fence in front of Bellevue?”

“No?”

“People left so many presents for you, dude. Too bad you can’t collect. I mean, also a lot of cards and flowers from people who thought you were dying. But literally, I saw on the news, someone left a PlayStation.”

“Bruh,” said Miles. Why would someone leave a Playstation on the street in front of the hospital?

“Actually,” said his mom, sifting flour, “the hospital’s been collecting everything that’s non-perishable. Or a candle. You have a week to collect it before they donate it to the Goodwill.”

“But since Spider-Man’s not swinging anywhere anytime soon, I think you’re making a donation, Miles,” said his dad, pulling the sugar down from a high shelf.

“Huh,” said Miles

“Aw,” said Ganke, throwing some chocolate chips in his mouth.

“What do you mean ‘aw,’” asked Miles. “We already have your PlayStation at the dorm.”

“Yeah, but the one at the hospital came with the new Star Wars game. But dude, you totally need to figure out how Parker collected on royalties, because your merch is selling like crazy.”

Miles didn’t think he could sign any contracts without his parents, so that was a conversation that couldn’t be had until after they’d sorted everything.

“Has everything been okay since everything happened?” asked Miles.

“Things mostly went back to normal after a few days,” said Ganke.

“You don’t need to worry so much about it,” said his dad.

“Did they figure out those missing persons cases?” asked Miles.

“Most of them,” said his dad. “Some of the people who got out of the city just didn’t return for a while. Some of them were reported missing by their neighbors or employers who hadn’t heard from them. They’re turning up.”

“Only most of them, though?” asked Miles.

“We’ll see, Miles.”

Chaos breeds crimes of opportunity. Aunt May had told him that during one of their teatime chats. He hoped that there weren’t people in the city who’d taken the evacuation as an opportunity to snatch people. Miles still couldn’t stand it that people had been hurt because he’d waited so long to get out of school that day. He could have preempted the evacuation, and it would be terrible if people had actually been taken in that chaos.

“What about, um, what have they been saying about everything on the news…oh, hey, should we be watching the news, to see what people are saying about my disappearance?”

“Oh, leave the news off,” said his mom. “We’re baking cookies, you’ll ruin the mood.”

“Ruin the mood? I’m pretty sure they’ll taste the same. Why, do you think they’re saying bad things about me?”

“No, but they’ll take it as a good opportunity to rehash everything that’s gone on so far,” said his dad. “I don’t know about you, but we all just got home, and I don’t feel the need to relive all of that right now.”

Miles immediately felt guilty. He’d been so focused on wishing his parents would get his consequences out of the way, he kept forgetting how much crap his parents had been through for all of this.

“Changing the subject,” said Ganke, sounding mischievous as he dug a big scoop of chocolate chips out of the bag, this time to actually put in his dough, “I still can’t believe everyone’s seen you naked. That’s so embarrassing for you.”

“What are you talking about?” asked Miles, shifting a little uncomfortably. “I wouldn’t call like, a dozen people, everyone,” said Miles, though a dozen people was still embarrassing enough.

“Yeah, _in person_ ,” said Ganke.

“I guess we haven’t mentioned,” said his dad, “helicopter footage of you being decontaminated was leaked online.”

“What?! I’m naked on the internet?”

“And on TV,” said Ganke.

“I’M NAKED ON TV?!”

“Relax, mijo,” said his mom, “no one can tell that pequito pajaro is yours. And they blur it on TV.”

“Mom!” said Miles, not at all appreciating his mom had basically just called his dick small in front of Ganke.

“Yeah,” said Ganke, grinning, “your face was still jacked up, so even knowing it was you, I could barely tell. But dude, some stations didn’t even blur your butt!”

Ganke apparently thought this was the funniest thing in the world.

“This is literally the worst thing that’s ever happened to me,” he said, trying for levity, but not quite feeling it.

With that, his parents shared an aggrieved look between them.

“Too soon to make jokes about the worst thing that’s ever happened to me?”

«Yes, it’s too soon to make jokes!»

“Sorry, I’m just kind of distressed about the fact that people can download a naked video of me. Is the online version even censored at all?”

“Nah,” said Ganke. “I still can’t believe it.”

“And they’re not censoring my butt on TV?”

“On some networks they didn’t, the first time it aired,” said his dad, “which was not appropriate.”

“Oh, but he has such cute nalgas.”

“Mom!”

“Yeah, but their _our_ cute little nalgas,” said his dad, reaching over and smacking Miles on his rear.

“Dad!” shouted Miles. “Look at this Ganke, look at the disrespect I have to deal with in my own house.” He kind of meant it, really. He didn’t understand why they were taking this so lightly. Was he blowing it out of proportion? Almost no one knew it was him.

Ganke just started cackling at Miles’s dramatics.

His dad reached over and wrapped an arm around Miles’s shoulders, squeezing him close. It was only as he did so, though, that Miles realized how tense his dad was. Looking over at his mom, he saw her pressing her lips together.

They were only pretending, he realized. They _were_ bothered by it. They were upset someone had leaked the video of him naked. They were upset television stations didn’t blur his butt. They were pretending to take it lightly because they hoped he’d take their lead and not be upset about it. It was an old trick of theirs, going back to the days of skinned knees and fallen ice cream cones. But he didn’t know how to take it lightly. Understanding that his parents _were_ upset just made it all the harder to try to feel copacetic about the whole thing.

“Alright,” he announced, “bathroom break.”

“I’m gonna eat all the leftover cookie dough if you take too long,” said Ganke.

“I’m not going to be that long!” said Miles. They were only just finishing the doughs. They still had to scoop it out across three cookie sheets.

As Miles closed himself off in the bathroom he thought about the fact that Ganke had definitely watched the video himself. Probably one where his butt was showing. Maybe even one where he wasn’t censored at all.

He shouldn’t be upset about that. They shared a dorm and a shower room. It wasn’t like they’d never seen each other undressed. It shouldn’t bother him, but it did. That video wasn’t the same thing, though. Right? It felt completely different. And Miles could almost convince himself that he was being stupid about the whole thing, but his parents were upset too. His mom had taught him to laugh along with life’s curveballs, but she was only pretending to laugh. His dad had set the tone for Miles’s concept of modesty by taking Miles to the pool with him, growing up, and using the locker room. But his dad hated the fact that the video had been released. It wasn’t stupid, it was a crossed line.

And why would anyone release it in the first place? It _was_ police footage, but there wasn’t anything newsworthy about it. It didn’t show him disarming the bomb. It didn’t show a criminal being apprehended. It just showed Miles naked and dying.

Ganke thought it was funny, though. And wasn’t it also funny? Last month, when Quinn had streaked through the dorm one evening, Miles had laughed. He’d laughed again when a red-faced Quinn had been dragged back to his room by their aggrieved night-watch. And Quinn had barely gotten in trouble for it, so it’s not like it was a big deal. So it was funny.

Except Miles hadn’t lost a bet and gone streaking. It was different.

Miles resolved not to think about it. He focused on his breathing. There was still a phantom ache in his chest when he breathed too hard, and it was hurting now. Slow it down, in and out. Hold for a second in-between. Hold for two. Hold for three. See, you’re not even crying, he told himself. Nothing terrible has happened.

He flushed the toilet and washed his hands to keep up the pretense and put a smile on his face when he left the bathroom.

“Oh, good, you’re still scooping,” he said. “Let me get in there.”

His mom gave him a kiss on the forehead as he came into the kitchen.

Miles started flagging around the time the cookies went into the oven. It had been a long day, and he still very much had issues with his stamina. Ganke didn’t stay too much longer once his mom saw how tired Miles was getting. She bundled him up on the couch for a nap, before sending Ganke back to Visions with a Tupperware container full of cookies. But for however tired he was, Miles had too much restless energy in him to sleep, so he pulled his laptop out to look some things up.

Youtube was a bit of a bust. The footage was there, but it all had the watermarks of different news stations. He tried searching again with the word ‘uncensored’ but that just brought results from Fox News and CNN to the top. Those were probably versions where his butt was showing. But Miles wasn’t looking to see the middle-ground bad. He wanted to see the worst version of what had been released, so he could make up his mind how he felt about it.

He’d never been on 4chan before, only knowing it by reputation as being the black hole of the internet. He figured it was a good place to look for uncensored footage, and it turned out he was right, as he found what he was looking for in just a few seconds.

He hit play.

At first, he was too taken aback by literally everything else to be bothered about the original source of his discomfort. There was so much blood, all over his body, but especially around his puffy, bruised, and blistered face and his leg, no matter that he was being sprayed down with water, there was more blood to replace it. His eyes were blood red, like something out of a horror movie. He watched himself stagger to his knees. He watched himself collapse. He watched people with scrub brushes on sticks surround him from a distance. Miles was pretty sure he was completely unconscious when they flipped him over, and then when they pulled him out of the pit.

He almost closed his computer in the middle of it, wanting nothing to do with this footage. It was awful.

It was awful, it was awful, it was awful. He looked like death. He looked like he was dead. He looked like the life had bled out of him right then and there, and nothing was left but a corpse and a ghost that had forgotten to move on.

But he made himself keep watching instead, and when the video was over, he watched it again, this time focusing on his original concern with the footage. He watched as the Miles on the screen squirmed in the pit, under the spray of water, revealing the entirety of his side. How his whole backside could be seen when he rolled onto his stomach to push himself up on his knees. And then he collapsed on his back, and just everything was there. There were his blistered and bruised bits for everyone to see. And he thought that was the worst of it, but then it showed the part where he was unconscious and rolled over so they could scrub his back. Miles was taken aback by how intimate and invasive he felt the view was as his legs spread apart during the scrubbing. How many people had seen this?

And then when he was laid out on the ground out of the ditch, and the lighting was better, it felt like it was starting all over again, this horrible feeling of being seen. All the while he’d been in the hospital being poked and prodded all over his body, Miles hadn’t felt as exposed and violated as he did in that moment. Even when Felix had been pulling the catheter from out of him, he hadn’t felt this uncomfortable and powerless.

“Are you okay, Miles?” asked his dad.

“I…”

His dad came around the couch to see what he was looking at. Miles didn’t bother trying to hide it.

His dad put a hand on his head, and then took a seat on the coffee table beside him.

“It really did upset your mother and me when we saw they’d released that footage,” said his dad. “I know we were making light of it earlier, but…I guess we were hoping that it wouldn't bother you as much if we did.”

For a few moments, it had. He just couldn’t get his brain to wrap around the situation like that, though.

“It's just a little embarrassing,” said Miles, his voice thick.

“It is what it is,” said his dad. “And you’re allowed to feel however you feel about it.”

“I don't wanna…” Miles sniffled. “It's just…it’s just a dick and a butt. It's whatever.” It wasn't just a dick and a butt, it was everything about the video, it was the look of death, and it was a rearview of his bits that felt so much more exposing than all the rest, but it was easier to boil it down to something that could feel almost trivial.

“Come here,” said his dad, opening his arms, and shifting himself to sit on the edge of the couch.

Miles went willingly into the hug, even as he tried to hold back another sniffle. A few days ago, he’d have given anything to be able to cry properly, but he didn't want to cry over this. It was stupid.

“I know hardly anyone knows it's me, but I still don’t want anyone to see me like that,” he admitted.

“I know," said his dad.

“Why’d they leak it? There's no reason for anyone to see that. That’s not news!”

His dad sighed. “It was Saughy,” he said. “Smart thing would have been for him to keep his head low, but I guess all he had left in him was spite.”

That was all it took for Miles’s face to screw up as he started to cry.

“He already hurt me so much,” said Miles. “Why’d he have to…I thought it was over when I defused the bomb, that the ARS was just it, but they keep coming back at me.”

“He’s an evil bastard,” said his dad. “A racist evil bastard, who has nothing but hate in his heart. But Miles, I want you to know, as much as you never wanted anyone to see this, it hasn’t changed that people still think of you as a hero. The people who’ve seen this video, they know how much you sacrificed to keep this city safe. And sure, that’s not the only thing they think about when they see it; so many people have been heartbroken, seeing a child like this. A lot of them are angry about it. But I don't know how anyone could watch this video and think less of you.”

Miles appreciated hearing that, even if he didn’t quite think it was true. “But still," he said. He felt so incredibly vulnerable for having this out there.

“Yeah,” said his dad. "But still. Hey, I'll have a talk with Ganke. Let him know we’re not going to be joking about this, okay?”

Miles shook his head. “No, I think…I think I'd rather laugh about it, than anything else. I just can't laugh about it right now.”

“That’s okay, Miles,” said his dad.

There was chicken soup for dinner that night. His mom had made it without the usual spices, because his stomach still wasn't up for a lot, but it was still good to have something home-cooked and hearty. It did a lot to improve Miles’s mood, but the video continued to be on his mind through the evening, even as they talked at the dinner table about school and what the ‘back-to-school’ plan might look like. Even as they watched a couple of back-episodes of Ninja Warrior later together on the couch (Miles could now boast openly about how handily he could complete the entire course).

It was still on his mind as his parents sent him to get ready for bed. So, when he was settled in his room later, he pulled out his laptop and ran another search on the video. Not to watch it again, or to see if there were any different versions of it he should be concerned about. He wanted to know what people were saying about it. He knew his dad didn’t think anyone thought any less of him for it, but he couldn't quite imagine that was the case.

One of the first hits that came up on google was from a YouTuber Miles watched on occasion, ThomasRay. Miles decided he should at least start with someone he actually liked, so he clicked on the video, making sure his headphones were connected first.

“What’s up, my awesome listeners? Hope you’re having a fantastic Friday. Welcome back to the ThomasRay Show, get ready to like and subscribe if you’re new here, and let’s just get right to today's news.

“And the first thing we're going to talk about today, as you can expect, we have new developments and controversy surrounding the situation with the terror attack in New York and Spider-Man. First, it has finally been confirmed that the officer that was arrested two days ago, Lieutenant James Saughy, was arrested on charges of aiding and abetting the attack. According to a released statement, he is alleged to have been in direct contact with the terror cell that affected the attack, provided them with information about the FBI investigation to help them evade capture, helped them to time the attack to when it would be most effective, and collaborated with Officer Trip Laughlin. Officer Laughlin, of course, is the officer we covered yesterday who was caught and seriously injured while apparently trying to murder Spider-Man in his hospital room, and who has also been charged with sabotaging PDNY equipment, with the intent of preventing the bomb squad from arriving at the scene in time, now confirmed to have been one of the bomb squad helicopters.”

The video cut, showing ThomasRay in a different outfit. “Hey guys, it’s me from the future with a quick update, a new charge for Officer Saughey has just been released related to the leaking of video footage, the subject of which will be discussed later in this video.”

The video cut back. “Of course, these charges are deeply disturbing, that members of the PDNY would aid and abet a terror plot that aimed at rendering New York uninhabitable. The question remains, are there any other coconspirators in the PDNY?

“These newly released charges, which many people were expecting, given the timing of the arrest, and Lieutenant Saughy’s position on the Law Enforcement Coordination Program, are expected to have a major impact on the PDNY. The department was originally criticized for being unable to mobilize their bomb squad and their hazmat teams in a timely manner, and now it’s being alleged that that failure was due to malice, instead of negligence. A lot of people are calling for significant oversight and change to how the PDNY screens, hires, and trains its employees. That's not a new movement, of course, but it has been revitalized by this development. Issues related to racism and conduct have dogged the organization throughout its history.

“Now, that's the story on the arrest so far, and I’d love to hear your thoughts about it. Do these allegations point to the work of a couple of bad actors, or is there a need for greater change in the New York Police Department? Are you concerned that this is evidence of infiltration by far right terrorist groups into our nation’s law enforcement? Let me know in the comments below.

“Moving on, there has been a lot of controversy regarding a video that was leaked a couple of days ago from the PDNY. I won’t be linking to any version of that footage in this video, for reasons that will become obvious as we discuss the matter. The footage itself was taken from one of the police helicopters at the scene of the events at the Central Park Tower, concerning the aftermath of the bomb’s defusal. Many of you will have already been aware of footage taken by a news helicopter of Spider-Man exiting the tower, unmasked, and in very clear medical distress. It was this footage also, that made it very clear just how young this new Spider-Man is. Though we still don't know his exact age, he’s been placed at between the ages of twelve and fourteen. Meanwhile, this new leaked footage continues from shortly after that, as Spider-Man was decontaminated of the radioactive substance, the very dangerous cesium-137, he had been exposed to.

“The footage is particularly controversial because Spider-Man was _nude_ as a part of the decontamination process, and the footage was released uncensored. News stations that aired the footage did censor the footage, generally with a blurring effect, and while stations such as MSNBC and ABC took time to fully censor the footage, stations such as Fox News and CNN did not, seeming to rush the footage to air as soon as they received it, if the broadcasts they interrupted to air it are any indication. Both stations were noted to have left footage of his backside uncensored when the footage first went to air, though they have more fully censored it during subsequent airings.

“Now, I think it's pretty obvious that really, the footage should not have aired incompletely censored. I'm not going to speculate on why it wasn’t, in some cases, other than to say that, it’s kind of obvious why. As for why the footage was released uncensored online in the first place, one expert has noted that while censored footage would have been kept on the PDNY electronic evidence server, it would have logged anyone who had accessed it. The original unedited media would have not been accessible to very many people in the PDNY, but could have been accessed without a digital log.

“Now, as you can expect, there's been a lot of controversy around the footage. You do have people saying, oh, this is child pornography, it’s child exploitation, the people who aired this are pedophiles, websites that host the video are run by pedophiles, if you've watched it, you're a pedophile.”

Miles closed his laptop in a hurry, rolled over onto his stomach, and pulled his pillow over his head, clamping it down on either side of his head. He felt like too many thoughts were spinning around in his head.

‘Child pornography’ and ‘pedophiles’ weren’t even words that had been remotely on his radar around this whole thing, and now they felt like they were coming at him from every angle. If there were any words that he didn't want to be associated with himself, or with Spider-Man, those were definitely up there. This whole thing just kept getting worse and worse.

Miles considered that he should just put his laptop away and go to bed. Wash his hands of the whole topic, and just not think about it. But after having his little freakout, he rolled back over, opened his laptop back up, and unpaused the video.

“Obviously, there’s debate to be had about this footage being out there at all. _Legally_ speaking it’s not child pornography, because there’s no sexual content, and the purpose of taking the footage clearly was not titillation.” Miles found himself feeling immensely relieved at the pronouncement, and wished he’d watched for five more seconds in the first place. “It remains wildly inappropriate though that it was released in this uncensored format, however. I don’t think that there’s any debatable position on that. Speaking as a father, if it was my child in a situation like that, I would be beyond enraged if someone shared footage like that. Especially because, you know, there are doubtless people who’ve watched it for prurient interests.” Miles frowned at his monitor. He couldn’t quite credit ThomasRay’s assumption that perverts were watching the video; he couldn’t imagine anyone seeing anything titillating in the horrifying footage.

“We can only speculate as to why the footage was leaked online in the first place, and while I think it's reasonably safe to say the interest wasn't prurient, it does show a certain callousness towards the action in the first place.”

The footage cut again. “Future me, again. This _is_ the video footage that James Saughy is alleged to have leaked. And while we can _still_ only speculate as to why he leaked it, I’d have to say, assuming the allegations are true, the only thing I can think of is: malice, retaliation for Spider-Man having defused the bomb. Which does add a whole new dimension to the debate on the footage being publicly available, with that implication that the _purpose_ of the leak appears to essentially be revenge porn. Which, I know past me just got done saying it's not pornography, but purely in terms of motive, yeah, I can't really see it in any context at this point other than as revenge porn of a child.”

Miles groaned in discomfort.

The video cut back. “Moving on from that argument, there were two more nuanced positions that I wanted to discuss, more specifically regarding the broadcast of the footage on television. These arguments boil down to, either yes, the footage is worthwhile and should be aired for journalistic purposes, and no, even censored, this is a violation of a child’s privacy. On that first side, you have people saying that this footage has clear journalistic merit. That is to say, that it is informative and that it is evocative, and thus it should be shared. And, if you watch the footage, as I have, you can see that yes, this footage is informative. It shows us the horrible effects that this terrorist attack has had on the hero who stopped it. It shows us again, that he is a child, and a child who is suffering, and at that time, dying. It is a stark portrayal of what this act of terror has wrought, and what could have happened to countless New Yorkers had the bomb detonated.

“And, even more so than it being informative, it _is_ evocative. I don't think you can watch the footage and not feel horror, helplessness, concern. I watch that video and I feel enraged at the perpetrators of the attack, and frustrated that it is a child paying the price. And it really pushes to the forefront of all of our minds, I think, what are we as a society going to do about the fact that Spider-Man is a child?”

Miles’s relief had been way too short-lived. He didn't want people feeling horror about him being Spider-Man. He didn’t want them hung up about his age. He didn’t want his suffering to be up for public consumption.

“So from that standpoint, I can say that, yeah. The footage has journalistic merit. It accomplishes something by being seen. But to balance that out, you have people saying, that, well, it doesn't matter if it has journalistic merit, it's still a sharp violation of this child’s right to privacy. That Spider-Man didn’t decide to strip out in the open downtown as a juvenile prank, he was in the midst of a desperate lifesaving procedure. That while law enforcement had cause to point their camera at what was happening there, we as a nation don’t need to intrude upon that moment of vulnerability that he never consented to. News outlets that received the footage could have viewed it privately, and described it to their viewers to inform them about it.

“And, as someone engaged in journalism, I can absolutely understand this side of the argument. This program does not name children associated with crimes, we don’t show their faces. To be certain, I’m not linking to the footage we're discussing, though, on the flip side, I’ve never covered a story about a child that is so singularly remarkable as this one, so I suppose I can kind of see it both ways.

"Before I round this out, and ask you for your thoughts on the matter, I did think I’d welcome another voice to give their input. The whole while I was working on this segment, I was being reminded of the Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph from the Vietnam War, colloquially named ‘Napalm Girl.’ Photographer Nick Ut caught footage of women and children fleeing from a village that was accidentally bombed with napalm, and then ten-year-old girl Kim Phuc was severely burned, to the point of having her clothing burned off of her body, and it was the photograph of her fleeing naked and injured down the street that became one of the defining moments of the war and the protests against it. Obviously, no one can speak for Spider-Man on the question of this footage, but Kim has actually spoken about this moment herself. This footage is from the New York Historical Society’s documentary series: The Vietnam War 1945-1975. In spite of what I just said about not showing child victims on this channel, in this context, I will be showing the accompanying video. I do caution you though, that the video is graphic, as described.”

The video cut, not to the picture that Miles himself was already familiar with, but rather to that same child in what looked to be a hospital setting, her hair thin and short after the fire, the burns all across her back and arms clearly evident.

“After I went home from the hospital, the first time I look at that picture, I say, ‘Oh my goodness.’” The video then did transition to the famous photo, and even more than the last, it made Miles’s gut clench. “‘Why he took that picture?’ I’m naked. In agony.” Yes, thought Miles, exactly. “And it looked ugly. But later on, I have to accept that that picture…it's really powerful." Another picture, this one maybe a few seconds after the other, closer up, with the burned peeling skin on Kim’s arm in clear view. “I became a victim of war. And, you know, millions of children who suffer, their picture wasn’t taken. Now, I have accepted it and I’m thankful that my picture worked for good.”

Miles supposed he could see where she was coming from, but did that really apply to him? He didn't want his ugly naked agony to be the face of the evils of white nationalism, even if it was powerful. That wasn't the symbol that Spider-Man was supposed to be. It was his strength that people were supposed to see, his strength that let people know they were going to be okay. He wasn't supposed to be a victim. A victim twice over: to the bomb, and then to the leak.

“Obviously, while there are clear parallels between the Napalm Girl photo and the decontamination footage of Spider-Man, they aren’t one-to-one comparisons, and I don’t want anyone to take it as my trying to put Kim Phuc’s words into Spider-Man's mouth. This is a situation where I don’t know that there _is_ a clear-cut answer, other than: Yeah, news stations, maybe take an extra five minutes to properly blur the footage next time. But all that's to say, I’d love to know your thoughts on the matter. Are you on the side that says the footage is important and necessary, or the side that says it's a violation of privacy? Do you have a completely different thought process on the issue? Let us know in the comments down below.

“Moving on, some things I loved today-”

Miles closed the laptop again and rolled over onto his back to think.

He’d kind of known that it wasn’t the best of ideas to go looking at what everyone was saying about the footage but considered he’d probably lucked out to click on the video he had. He still didn't know how he was supposed to feel about the whole thing, though. He wanted to be able to laugh about it, but he didn't know how.

…

Miles opened his laptop again, and typed: Spider-Man decontamination meme.

The first thing that popped up was a Reddit thread titled: that one kid at camp that refused to shower. He clicked on it, revealing a gif of himself, on the ground, surrounded by hazmat suited emergency workers scrubbing him with brushes.

Miles snorted a laugh. Okay, that was funny.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: This chapter deals with Miles finding out about the release of the footage of his decontamination, and his strong feelings of being violated and exposed.
> 
> Sorry for the long wait for a shorter chapter. Things have been wild IRL (mostly in a good way), and I only just got back to writing. 
> 
> The YouTuber I used in this chapter is based on a real content creator I watch sometimes, but I decided against putting words in their mouth like I had in the first chapter for a few actual TV personalities, so I gave them a different name. 
> 
> The Vietnam documentary I referenced is real, and you can go watch it. The section about the Napalm Girl photo was pretty interesting. Quick disclaimer, the Kim Phuc quote I used is actually two of her quotes smashed together just to make it more concise. 
> 
> Shout out to my beta The_Lord_of_Chaos.

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings (SPOILERS) - This story deals heavily with Miles being severely irradiated while foiling a white-nationalist terror plot. Content warnings in particular for horrifying bloody medical problems. A big section of this fic involves Miles being bedridden in the hospital and dealing with the numerous quiet indignities of being dependent on others for his basic functioning. 
> 
> Another part of this fic deals with Miles processing having footage of himself being decontaminated, nude, leaked to the press. The leak boils down to and is addressed in the fic as revenge porn of a child. 
> 
> There is canon typical violence. 
> 
> There is heavy use of the police in this fic. I took steps to minimize their role in the narrative, but it’s still there. I’m hoping I've found a good balance of acknowledging that Jefferson is a cop and a good man, while not quite ignoring that ACAB. The fic on its own isn't pro or anti-cop.
> 
> Child Protective Services plays a role in this fic.


End file.
